thanks for the fast replies.
@summary: i don't think xorg edgers will really help, because in order to run the emgd driver, i had to use an older version of xorg (1.9 instead of ubuntu default 1.10). the emgd driver is currently by far the best driver for the gma 500, but it's somehow behind the regular releases and has to be installed from a launchpad repository.
I agree, the Ubuntu PPA at
https://launchpad.net/~gma500/+archive/emgd which provides the driver also comes (via package dependencies) with its own patched xserver-xorg replacement package for Natty (Ubuntu 11.04) which is actually an X.org 1.9 version (it just pretends to be a 1.10 version to make it installable on Ubuntu Natty which ships 1.10 by default; the version string is:
1.10.9-down1.9.2.901.2+git20101129+server-1.9-branch.65f2ab20-0ubuntu0sarvatt2~natty).
@tomreyn: it's true that it has something to do with the driver, i think if i remember correctly, i had the same problem with the almost similar windows driver. i just wondered, whether it can be fixed on the side of the engine rather than the driver.
but maybe i just have to wait for the driver to get better or the open source driver to become ready.
I would be the wrong person to answer the question whether it can be fixed / worked around from within the game (I assume it possbily could, but it would involve a lot of testing, snce there are no known criteria of what works and what does not). But this would seem like the wrong approach. While OpenGL is a somewhat problematic standard it is good to exist, since you need such standards everyone agrees on (across multiple hardwares + drivers) to have a common foundation you can write code for. Otherwise game developers would end up becoming graphics driver workaround writers for every GPU out there, which (though it partially should not have to happen - that's what standards are there for - does have to happen sometimes due to various shortcomings, mostly in existing graphics drivers) is much less than ideal.
So, in your case, having bought a hardware which its vendor only provides an outdated and somewhat crippled driver for, I'm afraid you will indeed need to wait + hope for availability of better driver support. :-/
besides, the system requirements should be fine, althought the cpu is maybe a little bit slow. the chip and driver support opengl 2.1, 1 gig ram is there and a 1.33ghz cpu.
The CPU is indeed a bit slow, and a single core 1.33 GHz CPU is below the (admittedly somewhat artificial and imprecise) statement on
minimum requirements (single core 1.5 GHz CPU) we have in the README. Apparently the driver does not fully support the OpenGL 2.1 specification, otherwise those issues you run into should not happen (unless it is running out of RAM etc.)
The "1.0 GB RAM" listed as a requirement in the README refers to a minimum of 1 GB
free RAM for exclusive use by the game. If you have a total of 1 GB system memory then a good part of it will be used by the GPU (which depends on 'stealing' RAM from the system memory), and another part by the operating system and other processes, leaving a maximum of 650 MB RAM for exclusive use by the game.
Something you could ty is to experiment with texture compression (an option which can be switched within the game) as well as to add another GB of RAM (this system can have a maximum of 2 x 1.0 GB RAM).
