Sure, GE works fine on 9.04 generally speaking - but it needs hardware
accelerated 3D support, and it has trouble if some desktop effects are
enabled. So the questions to ask are:

Do I have hardware accelerated 3D video drivers running? (if not, get
that fixed and try GE again)
Do I have any extra compiz effects enabled? (if so, disable them and try
GE again)

9.04 is problematic for people with intel video, and for many ATI video
chipsets. Intel video is dramatically improved in 9.10 and hopefully ATI
will catch up to the current version of X soon enough to help users of
9.10 as well.