I played around with Xubuntu some more last night (again, everything runs fine on Windows, but I prefer Linux), and still no luck.
What happened with it? What version of driver did you install?
I just did a kernel lock (
http://askubuntu.com/questions/178324/how-to-skip-kernel-update) to 3.2.0.37.45 (had to use pico instead of gedit, as it looks like gedit doesn't load with a standard install). When looking at the "additional drivers" app (little card looking thing by the clock) the beta drivers are listed as 12.11 which makes me think that the proprietary drivers are 12.10.
Going to try the built in installer, then the hard way if that doesn't work.