Slow NVidia drivers? Geforce 8200

[nosebreaker]

This is with an onboard Geforce 8200 on a MSI K9N2G Neo motherboard with 4GB of RAM.

I still haven't gotten to the point where I would install LinuxMCE yet, I finally got Software RAID5 working (I followed this thread and it mostly worked the first try http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=699075).  Be sure to use the Alternate CD if you go that route.

I used NVIDIA-Linux-x86-177.80-pkg1.run and it compiled its own driver.

It seems to work, but there is no nvidia splash screen, KDE doesn't think there are any restricted drivers loaded, and if I go to the Hardware section it says it is using the VESA driver, yet it says Driver: nvidia.  glxgears only gives 1400fps and it should be 10x that for this card!  nvidia-settings works, it shows the card and shows it is using 512MB of ram which makes me think it is using the driver.  Right now when it goes to shut down the "fade" effect takes forever to scroll down the screen it is so bad!

Any ideas to confirm if it is even using the nvidia driver?  I found a horrible thread about how 8000/9000 cards don't work properly in Ubuntu at all!
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=115916

Any help is appreciated.

[totallymaxed]

This is with an onboard Geforce 8200 on a MSI K9N2G Neo motherboard with 4GB of RAM.

I still haven't gotten to the point where I would install LinuxMCE yet, I finally got Software RAID5 working (I followed this thread and it mostly worked the first try http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=699075).  Be sure to use the Alternate CD if you go that route.

I used NVIDIA-Linux-x86-177.80-pkg1.run and it compiled its own driver.

It seems to work, but there is no nvidia splash screen, KDE doesn't think there are any restricted drivers loaded, and if I go to the Hardware section it says it is using the VESA driver, yet it says Driver: nvidia.  glxgears only gives 1400fps and it should be 10x that for this card!  nvidia-settings works, it shows the card and shows it is using 512MB of ram which makes me think it is using the driver.  Right now when it goes to shut down the "fade" effect takes forever to scroll down the screen it is so bad!

Any ideas to confirm if it is even using the nvidia driver?  I found a horrible thread about how 8000/9000 cards don't work properly in Ubuntu at all!
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=115916

Any help is appreciated.

Hmmm...well we have the 8200,8300 & 9300 GPU's working fine here.

we're using;

ii  nvidia-glx                  1:1.0.9639+2.6.22.4-14.9+lm NVIDIA binary XFree86 4.x/X.Org driver

Andrew