Comment 10 for bug 416073

I recently upgraded from Jaunty to Karmic and found that the 3D performance can be greatly effected by the kernel version. Using /usr/games/pinball as a reference ("Tux" table with effects turned off), I get:

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Linux version 2.6.27-14-generic (buildd@palmer) (gcc version 4.3.2 (Ubuntu 4.3.2-1ubuntu11) ) #1 SMP Fri Jul 24 22:19:33 UTC 2009

pinball => 8 fps using software rendering (acceleration will not kick in).

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Linux version 2.6.28-14-generic (buildd@palmer) (gcc version 4.3.3 (Ubuntu 4.3.3-5ubuntu4) ) #47-Ubuntu SMP Sat Jul 25 00:28:35 UTC 2009

pinball => 30 fps using Tungsten Graphics Mesa DRI Intel(R) 945GME GEM 20090712 2009Q2 RC3 x86/MMX/SSE2

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Linux version 2.6.31-6-generic (buildd@rothera) (gcc version 4.4.1 (Ubuntu 4.4.1-1ubuntu3) ) #26-Ubuntu SMP Fri Aug 21 17:48:16 UTC 2009

pinball => 115 fps using Tungsten Graphics Mesa DRI Intel(R) 945GME GEM 20090712 2009Q2 RC3 x86/MMX/SSE2

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In all cases:

xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.8.0-0ubuntu2
xserver-xorg-core 2:1.6.3-1ubuntu4
libgl1-mesa-dri 7.5-1ubuntu1

CPU is Intel Atom, running hyperthreading at 1600MHz

Using the latest kernel, games run quite smoothly, using older kernels they feel a bit "surgy" like some stop/start is happening. Flash games also run nicely, but not with the older kernels. Strangely, glxgears runs terribly jerky on my system, even with the 2.6.31-6 kernel.

The extreme tux racer only manages around 20 fps but still feels smooth to play.