Comment 5 for bug 987304

I have the same issue I think.

Any animation in Compiz, when using the nvidia driver and not nouveau and having the unity plugin active, is a series of "smooth jerky movements". That is, the movement is very smooth, but it stops randomly.

It is most pronounced with scale and wall, and not at all noticeable with wobbly unless the cursor is along a screen edge and the maximise grid is shown.

If I disable the unity plugin, every animation immediately becomes very smooth---in fact as smooth as in the old days of Gnome 2+Compiz.

If I uninstall the nvidia driver and use nouveau instead, the jerkiness disappears, but the smoothness as well. Also, the dash becomes close to unusable since it takes about a second for a letter to appear after I have typed it.

Graphics card: nVidia GeForce 6200 LE
Driver version: 295.40

> lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
Release: 12.04

> apt-cache policy compiz
compiz:
  Installed: 1:0.9.7.8-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 1:0.9.7.8-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 1:0.9.7.8-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://se.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-proposed/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1:0.9.7.6-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://se.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main i386 Packages

> apt-cache policy unity
unity:
  Installed: 5.12-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 5.12-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 5.12-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://se.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-proposed/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     5.10.0-0ubuntu6 0
        500 http://se.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main i386 Packages