Sorry about that, not quite sure on the precise etiquette of these forums, but I should have waited before bumping the thread. This bug is exclusively affecting the hl2 series of games, and only since wine 1.1.28. I don't know if it's a wine bug, an X11 bug or an ubuntu 8.10 bug, i really have no clue. I seem to be able to overcome it by using the show desktop command, then restoring hl2. Doesn't really overcome the core issue, but lets me keep playing, so all is well, i guess.
Sorry, thought I was responding to a message in another thread, but that thread appears locked now. Go ahead and delete this thread please.
Problem is we are limited by tools. http://blog.fenrus.org/?p=5 Is what we really need for problems like yours thorin. There is too many complexities to randomally guess and locate where the speed issue. Support for timchart comes with 2.6.32 linux that is due out at end of year or custom patched Linux kernel. With timechart we will be able to see who is the gulity party so be able to fix the issue. thorin thread was locked due to bad behaviour on your part thorin not the question. I was leaving this problem to higher developers to solve because I did not have a method of solving it. I guess they are just as stuck as me. Waiting on the tool to find the bugger.