Ubuntu HOWTO: 3D Acceleration in ATI Mobility Radeon M6 LY (and possibly others)

First, check to be sure that we have the 3D Acceleration drivers installed:

sudo apt-get install libgl1-mesa-dri

Next, open the xorg.conf file. This file controls how the graphical display acts:

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Find the part of the configuration of the log that says Section "Device". Notice that the entire configuration is seperated into sections. Each Section configures a different thing. We are looking for the Section that configures your video card.

Make a copy of the entire Section, then add "#" to the beginning of the lines of the first copy, like the example below:

before

Section "Device"
    Identifier    "ATI Technologies, Inc. Radeon Mobility M6 LY [Radeon Mobility 9000]"
    Driver        "ati"
    BusID        "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

after

#Section "Device"
#    Identifier    "ATI Technologies, Inc. Radeon Mobility M6 LY [Radeon Mobility 9000]"
#    Driver        "ati"
#    BusID        "PCI:1:0:0"
#EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier    "ATI Technologies, Inc. Radeon Mobility M6 LY [Radeon Mobility 9000]"
    Driver        "ati"
    BusID        "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Add the following Options to the second copy of the Section "Device":

    Option        "BusType" "PCI"
    Option        "AGPMode" "4"
    Option        "AGPSize" "32" # default: 8
    Option        "AGPFastWrite" "false" # More stable this way.
    Option        "SWcursor" "true" # More stable this way.
    Option        "EnablePageFlip" "true" # Faster.
    Option        "EnableDepthMoves" "false" # More stable this way.
    Option        "RenderAccel" "false" # More stable this way
    Option        "AccelMethod" "XAA" # or XAA, EXA, XAA more stable
    Option        "DDCMode"
    Option        "SubPixelOrder" "NONE"
    Option        "ColorTiling" "false" # More stable this way.
    Option        "DynamicClocks" "true"
    Option        "bioshotkeys"   "True"
    Option        "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "true" # More stable this way.

Look for the Section "Module", and insert these modules if they don't exist already:

    Load    "dri"
    Load    "extmod"
    Load    "glx"
    Load    "GLcore"

Reboot.

Once log in again:

glxinfo | grep direct

If it says "direct:Yes" congrats!