Cannot access Unity 3D while ATI graphics driver is installed on 12.04

[Darcy Moloney]

When I installed the recommended AMD/ATI Radeon grapics driver from the additional drivers program, no matter which (Unity) option I pick on the login screen, it will load Unity 2D. I removed the graphics driver and Unity 3D reverted back to it's proper self.

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

Thanks for the report. Can you please run this command after installing the driver '/usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p' and also try to start unity from terminal and see how it goes.

[Darcy Moloney (darcy951)]

I ran the test with FGLRX installed and it failed (tried playing minecraft, failed) and ran 'unity' in terminal and got a serg fault! I did the same without the driver and the test reconised my Intel chip (dual graphics) and the unity comand work perfectly (so did minecraft).

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Darcy, if unity_support_test fails then it means Unity can't support your current graphics driver/chip.

So this is not a bug unless you think you have new enough graphics and that unity_support_test is wrong... ?

Please run these commands and attach the resulting output files:
    /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p > test.txt
    glxinfo > glxinfo.txt

[Darcy Moloney (darcy951)]

I believe it should run unity 3D as (when on windows) it can run ultra-high end games and CAD software that is not possible when I disable the AMD graphics and use the intel3000hd chip.

I ran both command and they both came up with the previous error message mention in my post last night. I have supplied a screenshot of the original error message (forgot to attach it earlier) and I hope this help you work out what the bug is.

Again I ran both scripts under the intel chip and they both work.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thanks Darcy. That's a new one to me, but Google shows a lot of people with the same problem using the fglrx driver.

I know there are installation and uninstallation problems with the fglrx driver causing the wrong GLX libraries to be present and rendering OpenGL useless.

Please try:
  1. Run jockey-gtk and uninstall the FGLRX Radeon driver.
  2. In a terminal, run: sudo apt-get install --reinstall libgl1-mesa-glx
  3. Reboot
Then you should at least have a clean system and maybe the built-in radeon driver will work for you.

If that's not enough then also try:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Troubleshooting/VideoDriverDetection#Problem:_Need_to_purge_-fglrx

See also:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fglrx-installer/+bug/855943
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/ATI
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/293012
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=34846