I am running a PC with an internal Intel HD4000 graphics controller. When I run glxgears I get a frame rate of 60FPS so I am assuming that my graphics performance is way below what it should be.

Hardware:
Processor: Intel Core i7-3770S @ 3.90GHz (4 Cores), Motherboard: Gigabyte Z77MX-D3H, Chipset: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v2/3rd, Memory: 4096MB, Disk: 2000GB Seagate ST2000DL003-9VT1, Graphics: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v2/3rd Gen Core, Audio: VIA VT2020, Monitor: HU196D, Network: Atheros AR8151 v2.0 Gigabit

Software:
OS: LinuxMint 14, Kernel: 3.5.0-17-generic (x86_64), Desktop: Cinnamon 1.6.7, Display Server: X Server 1.13.0, Display Driver: intel 2.20.9, OpenGL: 3.0 Mesa 9.0.3, Compiler: GCC 4.7, File-System: ext4, Screen Resolution: 1280x1024

Any suggestions on how I can improve my graphics performance? Thanks for your help in advance.

You're running a kernel that predates the release of the HD 4000, which means your Intel video driver is an older version that was "semi" optimized for one of the older, much lower performance IGP's.

I think if you were to throw a newer kernel (something in the 3.9 era) or install the latest Intel graphics stack, you'd see a huge jump in performance.

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Timothy - Many thanks. There is indeed an updated Linux driver on the Intel web site
https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloa...-stack-release

It seems to be built around Kernel 3.8.2. I have been warned not to dabble with the kernel because Linux Mint comes as a complete, tested and supported distro. The latest version of Linux Mint (Linix Mint 15) is based on Ubuntu 13.04 which is based on the 3.8.8 Linux upstream kernel. I'm thinking I would be better to upgrade to that. What would you advise?

That rate sounds very similar to the monitor refresh rate. Just make sure it is not synchronized:

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Wow! Thanks - that changes glxgears to 8350 FPS. How do I incorporate that as a permanent change?

I could think of 2 options: either create an alias for glxgears or just set vblank_mode=0 as an environment variable in ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile

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You shouldn't change that. vblank will prevent the screen from tearing, it is a quality improvement.

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glxgears is rather a simple bit of 3D rendering, so it's not surprising that it can render at such a high fps with sync to vblank disabled. Other more demanding 3D aps may only manage a few hundred. Your monitor refresh will usually be at 60Hz, so there is not much point in the graphics card churning out e.g. 300 fps if the monitor is only going to render 60 fps... as TobiSGD said, it will cause visual tearing.

OK, thanks. That all makes sense. Going back to my original query, how can I establish whether my HD4000 graphics controller is performing as it should? I am aware of the Phoronix test suite but there are so many tests and I'm unsure how to interpret the results. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Newer kernel will help. I tried a HD4000 ultrabook on the Mint 15 beta a few weeks back (liveCD only) - graphics were ok, but you might want to look at this. Wouldn't be too hard to make the ppa fit Mint - for Mint 14 maybe no work at all.

To test your graphics just run a game of which you have data to compare with your system. The Phoronix Test Suite is nice, but overkill to just test the graphics. Nonetheless it can give you some data on the games you can try, like OpenArena, Nexuiz, ... .

Thanks for that - I did not realize it had a function outside of glxgears.

Regards,
Stefan

I am not a gamer and therefore can't compare with previous performance. However, I have
- Upgraded to Linux Mint 15
- Run the OpenArena test in the Phoronix suite

I now have the following configuration:

Processor: Intel Core i7-3770S @ 3.90GHz (8 Cores), Motherboard: Gigabyte Z77MX-D3H, Chipset: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v2/3rd, Memory: 4096MB, Disk: 2000GB Seagate ST2000DL003-9VT1, Graphics: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v2/3rd Gen Core, Audio: VIA VT2020, Monitor: HU196D, Network: Qualcomm Atheros AR8151 v2.0 Gigabit

Software:
OS: LinuxMint 15, Kernel: 3.8.0-19-generic (x86_64), Desktop: Cinnamon 1.8.8, Display Server: X Server 1.13.3, Display Driver: intel 2.21.6, OpenGL: 3.0 Mesa 9.1.1, Compiler: GCC 4.7, File-System: ext4, Screen Resolution: 1280x1024

The graphics performance I saw in the OpenArena test is more than adequate for my needs so I am reassured as a result of the assistance everyone has provided. I think this one is solved.

Linux Mint 15 does not boot correctly - seems to be a problem with the UEFI BIOS - but that is not for this thread. Many thanks for all your help.