Comment 11 for bug 1055936

The reason why llvmpipe is slow is because it is a completely software-based rendering solution, the whole desktop is rendered in software and then pushed at once. A change of a single pixel is causing full desktop redraw on every frame. I have filed LP:1098744 to track disabling the animations in case low graphics mode is enabled which will make it a bit faster but not fast enough to be considered useful in these environments.

I have also tested Intel HD 3000 running under plain VESA driver on Core i5 @ 2.5GHz and surprisingly found the performance of llvmpipe-based Unity to be quite on par with the accelerated version so it appears that some systems are indeed OK with such kind of full screen redraw mode.