wine users - Apr 2011 - White boxes appearing instead of graphics.

Well, a few days ago I was using my XP laptop when I was unable to boot windows,
I tried all sorts of things and couldn't get it to run, so I turned to
Linux. I backed up all my stuff and today I installed Ubuntu (Maverick). In
other words, I'm completely new to Linux.

I heard about Wine and I installed it and I can't believe how well it works
o_o, but I seem to be having a reoccurring problem in almost all of the games
I've tried so far. Either, all the of the 2D textures/sprites in the game
appear as white (or sometimes colored) rectangles, as if the texture isn't
loading. Also, for some games that the texture DOES load, the transparency is
broken and the sprites are contained within a white rectangle.

I've done a bit of research and I've found that these games DO work on
other's machines. I'm not sure if I have something configured wrong or
if my graphics card isn't quite compatible with Wine or something...

If you need me to provide any more info, just tell me.

(I do a bit of game design so I hope my explanation made sense for people who
don't know much about games...)

Thanks for reading.
Also as a side question, do most programs run slower compared to if you ran them
natively through windows? I'd expect that they would, but I figured I should
ask to make sure.

If you're using ATI/AMD card or Intel GMA card, your graphic problems mostly
come from here. ATI/AMD linux driver is horrible, causing many problems with
wine and games. Intel GMA cards are not really 3D graphic cards so even if it
kinda worked under Windows for some games, don't expect miracles under linux
for non native games.

Also, if you ATI/AMD card is "too old", it use open-source driver (not
ATI/AMD fglrx) so better forget modern games.

For best performances un GNU/Linux, Nvidia is sitll the best choice of graphic
card since their linux driver is very good. "Nouveau" open-source
driver is going good too, still too early to use it for 3D games but it make
very good progress.

And for your last question, many windows program run as good as on windows, I
can play smoothly "Bulletstorm", "Crysis 2" or "Dragon
Age 2" under linux thx to wine, even "Assassin's Creed
Brotherhood" with Xbox360 wired pad work.  8)

Regards,

WineFan62