Slow, old computer

[OMNOMNOM]

Hello

I installed Xubuntu for the first time a few days ago, and am now using Fluxbox. However my computer seems to be unreasonably slow. It has a 1.5ghz processor, 256m ram and 40gb of memory (on a second hand hd). I seeked out fluxbox for the very reason that I felt a very notable difference in speed, compared to an otherwise satisfying rate on XP.

With fluxbox the speed is ok, but I still think there's something off. I tried to install Wolfenstein ET, my computer topping the minimal requirements two-fold, and even with the minimal settings I get a very laggy performance, which shouldn't be the case methinks (I haven't run the game on this computer before though, even with Windows).

So yeahs, what might I be doing wrong?

And I would like to say linux might be the friggin' coolest thing I've encountered XD

[bigtomrodney]

Have you installed the correct drivers? What graphics card are you using?

[OMNOMNOM]

Intel 82852/855gm is what I gleaned from lspci. The computer is Acer Travelmate 2350 (I'm poor).

As for the correct drivers, I don't know. I tried searching but found nothing I understand.

The woes of a habitual semi-conscious installer -_-

Sorry for being a noob.

[Rubberman]

Given your lack of RAM, it is likely you are hitting your swap space, which will definitely give you sluggish performance. Personally, I don't think you are doing anything wrong, per se. You might want to disable any unneeded services (daemons) however, so that you release some of the memory that they will take up. If you aren't providing any server services, disable inetd/xinetd, for example. Other examples of services you probably don't need running are sshd, smbd, ntpd, etc. As root, run the command "service --status-all" to see what services are or are not running.

[GNU-Fan]

Your graphical system is not a graphic card, it is a "graphic controller". It is an embedded video system constructed with power saving in mind, not performance.

This video system does little to accelerate three-dimensional graphics. So this is where the lag in Wolfenstein comes from. If you want a quick benchmark, try glxgears. I expect that you will get a framerate of 300-500 FPS if the GLX drivers are installed correctly.

[OMNOMNOM]

Rubberman:

None of the services you listed showed up :/

GNU-Fan:

The framerate is around around 425.


So I suppose I can't do anything to improve it? Which would be a pity, I would love some entertainment when I'm brain-dead.

But very well, thank you for your replies.

[GNU-Fan]

The framerate is around around 425.
So I suppose I can't do anything to improve it?

Yes, 425 looks quite of what you can expect from that hardware under GLX.

Which would be a pity, I would love some entertainment when I'm brain-dead.

There are many NonGLX Games as well. Some of them quite old, but nevertheless enjoyable.

For example Doom I. Or Abuse.
Or JaggedAlliance2.