Hmm, difficult :-\ I don't have any game candidate here, and frankly I don't even have a current Wine install...
Getting a new Wine is easier than a new kernel :) The game I played with is a demo, available here:
ftp://ftp.infogrames.net/demos/imperiumgalactica2/ig2_english.zip
It's a really fun game, kinda like Civ in space :) Try it!
Stuff like that really shouldn't happen given that many people (among those also Windows core developers) say that our scheduling and thread creation performance usually beats Windows XP hands down.
So they do. Nonetheless _something_ is going wrong here, lots of people report these problems and for me audio isn't even stable with native apps. I am using the Compiz compositor and switching virtual desktops (which rotates a screen-sized cube) often causes audio glitches. So maybe it's 3D graphics related (though audio was never rock solid even before Xgl/compiz ...)
And no I guess it's not some nvidia sched_yield problem as Xgl works just fine here.
thanks -mike