Okay, here is what I see so far...hope this helps to organize things a bit!
User | Distribution | Video | Status
MaxEd | Debian Linux 4.0 | No Info | Working, performance ?
Per (Desktop) | Arch Linux 64-bit | Nvidia 8800GTS | Working, performance 1-2
Per (Laptop) | Arch Linux 64-bit | X3100 Integrated | Slowish/Video garbage then crash
Kxc | Ubuntu 7.04 | ATI Radeon 9600 XT | Graphical glitches
BW | Ubuntu 7.10 | ATI/Nvidia GeForce 4 | Slow
PhilosophiX | openSuse 10.2 | Intel Integrated | Slow/Audio problems, System Specs on the borderline.
Altefcat | Ubuntu 7.04 | Intel Integrated |Fullscreen not working/Window mode works
Chestah | Ubuntu 7.10 | ATI Radeon 9800 | Fullscreen not working/Window mode works/Can't click buttons.
RezApio | Ubuntu 7.10 | ATI Mobility 7500 | Graphical glitches/window manager problems?
Viratoxe (Sys1) | Gentoo Linux | Nvidia 7800 GS | Working, performance 4-5
Viratoxe (Sys2) | Gentoo Linux | Intel Integrated | Working, performance 18-20
Viratoxe (Sys3) | Gentoo Linux | Nvidia 5900 SE | Working, performance 4-5
Viratoxe (Sys3) | Ubuntu 7.10 | Nvidia 5900 SE | Install libstdc++.so.5, Nvidia binary drivers. Working, performance 4-5
Waltshooter | Ubuntu 7.10 | No info | Video garbage then crash in certain locations
Macdude22 | Mac OS X | No info | Wait, why is he posting in the Linux forum anyway?
Conclusions:
-Of the working(no slowdown or other problems) systems, 5 of the 6 are not using Ubuntu(not a determining factor in my opinion). At least three of those systems are using Nvidia video cards. (MaxEd, please let us know what video hardware you have...)
-Two of the systems with integrated video hardware ran slowly and the other two were "slower". That is to be expected I suppose. That's just how it is most of the time...even in the Windows world.
-Two of the systems with known ATI video hardware exhibited problems. In BW's case, slow, and in Chestah's case, full screen trouble and button clicking problems. I was assuming by his comments that Kxc(who experienced graphical problems) was using ATI hardware as well, but please correct me if I am wrong.
So, I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe some of the problems are a result of ATI video hardware and/or ATI drivers. I would tend to agree with Per here about his statement that ATI has historically had poor drivers for Linux. But I keep reading that the newer stuff is "better". I wish I had an ATI card at my disposal to test with, but alas, only Nvidia here. Perhaps I can dig one up at the computer store where I work to test with and go grab some of the bleeding edge drivers to try. Also, I believe that the distribution of Linux you are using makes *very little* difference at all concerning performance. More than likely, it's the version of video drivers that are available to that specific distribution in it's package management system if it uses one(Ubuntu and Debian do of course, I believe openSuse does as well). If the packagers of those distributions don't have the latest driver packages available, it could be part of the issue. I don't know...just trying to find a common thread here.
Most important, however, is that we eleminate the "No Info" entries in the Video Hardware column... If you are unsure of your video hardware as Waltshooter stated, that's fine, but if you know what you have, please, please let us know. (Waltshooter, could you please go to your "System" menu and then into "Preferences" and then start "Hardware Information". I know there is a *lot* of stuff listed and most of it makes no sense, but what you are looking for are some keywords such as: ATI, Radeon, Nvidia, Geforce.)
More tests as time permits. BW, don't get discouraged about this...I know of several big commercial games by the big development houses that have had problems with video driver versions upon release. It's not that uncommon of a problem really...if indeed that's what the problem is here. I would say we need some more tests done with ATI video hardware and drivers to test this theory...and then, of course, a solution!