Problem with Desktop effects

Hello,
I am new to openSUSE but not to *nix. I’ll just get right to it.
My hardware is having problems with effects: they do not turn on. I can not get them to work. Top notch effects worked fine with ubuntu and FreeBSD. I switched today from ubuntu 8.04 to openSUSE. I have 1 Gig of memory and a Nvidia 5500. Thanks in advance to your kindness.