doing 'dpkg-query -l | grep nvidia' gives: nvidia-glx-new 169.12+2.6.24.13-18.41 It's the latest as far as I know. I didn't do anything to sound no. By killing pulse, do you mean going to System Settings - Sound System and choosing anything other then Autodetect? I believe pulse is the default in kubuntu. I tried all settings on the graphics tab in winecfg yes, up to virtual desktop. I should mention that also San Andreas has the same behaviour, it started up a while ago (though it was not playable because the character kept moving without keypress) but now it dies right after the splashscreen. I am also trying to start the games on a fresh x xerver, without window manager. Code: Code: #!/bin/bash X :2 -ac & XPID=$! sleep 2 cd '/media/data/Games/Half Life 1' DISPLAY=:2 WINEDEBUG=-all wine "/media/data/Games/Half Life 1/Half-Life Source.exe" sleep 1 kill $XPID Half life 2 does this well..