I'm using Ubuntu warty. I've got all the codecs. And in a previous Ubuntu installation on the same machine, I was able to play video files by changing video out to x11. This was only a workaround, and I took a noticable performance hit doing this.

But now that I'm trying to get games working, this is unacceptable. Basically, in all video, the picture is displayed so that the left is on the right and the right is on the left and there is a bar going down the third vertical quater of the screen. Sometimes depending on mouse/x activity, the screen just goes blank/blue. I've tried mplayer, xine, and totem-xine and the result is always this.

My graphics card is an Intel 815em (embedded into the mother board, the system is a laptop), and I have always used the 810 driver. I'm pretty sure I didn't have this problem in a previous Mandrake era, so I'm hoping this is possible.

Any suggestions?

The 82815 video card is unssuprted. It is not supported in 9.0
I know because I have one. That split screen is a symptom of a mismatched driver

Is there a workaround for it?

As I understand there is an 815 Xsetup but xsetup is now defunct. maybe you could find that 815 setup tcl. I know it exists but I cannot find it. And I have been looking for it.