How to enable Unity 3D on an Nvidia Quadro 1000M

Question

I'm running Ubuntu 11.10 on my laptop, which has a Nvidia Quadro 1000M graphics card. At login, I chose the 3D version of Ubuntu, but somehow my laptop doesn't support this and switches to Unity 2D automatically. I think I might have a problem with my drivers. Is there a way to make Unity 3D work on my laptop?

When I try to run the unity_support_test test, I get:

Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0". Error: unable to create the OpenGL context

Solution

To make sure that your computer can run Unity 3D, type:

/usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p

If Unity 3D can be supported, you should have "Yes" responses to each of the items tested. It seems like you are probably going to get some "No" responses; please post the output here so we can get a better idea of the problems.

This is the output from mine:

Are you running the default drivers, or the Nvidia proprietary drivers? Open System Settings (under the "Gear Wheel" in the upper-right corner of the screen), and open Additional Drivers. It might be that there is a proprietary driver available if you enable it there.

Comments

[jokerdino]

Check this article to see if there is any problem with your drivers or hardware.

[Jorge Castro]

Can you try installing the drivers and then editing your question with what happens? askubuntu.com/questions/47506/…

[RobinJ]

Are there any other drivers showing up in the "Additional hardware drivers" dialog? You can reach it from the Unity (2D) Dash. I've also got an NVidia Quadro (NVS 110M), but it has been blacklisted for Unity as it seems to bring a lot of problems with it. My father's graphic card on the other hand (NVidia Quadro NVS 135M I think) can handle Unity without problems, though he needs the NVidia-173 driver to get it working.

[Martijn de Vree]

When I try to run the test, I get: Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0". Error: unable to create the OpenGL context