One issue with the older intel GMAs is that they don't support Shader Model 3 in hardware (some have partial support), which is mandatory for DX 9.0c and later. The windows drivers emulate the missing functionality, with quite poor performance. The linux intel drivers are generally lagging behind the windows drivers, and that emulation stuff will probably never be implemented. Some games rely on that Model 3.0 functionality, they expect at least software emulation, as it is some kind of minimum standard in DX 9.0c. So, no joy with intel, I wonder, if it would help to file a bug at intel and tell them to get their linux drivers DX 9.0c compliant. You should try to turn off all graphical effects in your game, if you haven't already. You could try to install the latest intel driver, 2.17, if you haven't already, there are a few repositories, e.g.: https://launchpad.net/~glasen/+archive/intel-driver All in all, I wouldn't expect too much, unfortunately intel hardware isn't a good choice for linux/wine.