[Wine] Wine performance drops hard on popup notification

[RemiParks]

Ubuntu 10.4 32bit
I've tried Ubuntu proprietary drivers, and latest Nvidia drivers 256.53 or something. (gpu = evga 8600 gts 256mb)
Wine versions 1.2 and up all have my issue

When I run Steam games windowed or fullscreened, they run amazing. Until I get a skype/pidgin/rythmbox/email notification popup, at which point the steam app drops dramatically in performance. (1 different frame every 10 seconds)
I've installed various things via wine tricks, and things just don't seem to fix it.
I'm curious if this is a common issue, or better yet is a quick fix available?

(steam isn't effected, but the games CSS/TF2/GMOD)