You might be affected by: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/+bug/763005 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/+bug/763005 There is a

You might be affected by: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/+bug/763005 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/+bug/763005 There is a series of known bugs where the window manager picks the wrong refresh rate resulting in choppy animations. I noticed that this happens consistently with all compositing window managers (compiz, xfwm4, mutter) except kwin. Disabling VBlank syncing may help. The bug report above has instructions to disable VBlank syncing with Compiz/Unity. If you are using mutter (gnome-shell) you can put this line in /etc/environment, restarting your X session afterwards export CLUTTER_VBLANK=none However, in my experience, Unity/compiz becomes sluggish again after a certain amount of clients are displayed on any (virtual) desktop.