I disable effects completely prior entering game, the same problem persists if I launch game from bare X with xterm terminal, so the problem is not bound to effects.
Somehow I get suggestions it is due to PCI-E and missing agpgart, like this post:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p...fb15dd#2181415
but no solutions so far, unless if you count booting into windows a solution.