> I'm trying to run a couple 3D games in Slackware 12, but there freeze very
> often. Only the program freezes howerver. I noticed that if I run the
> games as root, then the are fine and do not freeze.
>
> So, it seems like root has access to something that my normal login name
> doesn't. Any idea?

maybe the games need more precise timers, and otherwise deadlock ?!?
Try this
echo 1024 > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq

(a shot in the wild .. but)
--
damjan