X ATI driver?

[bsd at bathnetworks.com]

> On 6/17/06 6:56 PM +0100, bsd at bathnetworks.com wrote on Re: X ATI driver?
>
>>ATI cards with X Windows are a bit of a pain. As I understand it, ATI
>> have
>>not released their specs etc so that any X driver is reverse engineered.
>>NVIDA does provide drivers which do work. I have an old MACH32 in a
>> server
>>and could only get it to work as using the Vesa drivers. It runs at
>>1024x768, but I was not too bothered as the machine after setting up runs
>>headless.
>>
>>My advice is try the VESA drivers if that fails try and change to NVIDA.
>
> Rob,
>
> I'm finding the docs less than helpful about all this. If I
> don't use the suggested configuration, then I need to fill in a
> bunch of stuff I don't know about - or, so it seems, at least.
> Here's what the configuration file looks like after doing Xorg
> -configure.
>

Snip

> Any chance you could show me how to either do the changes to
> VESA or NVDIA or to find the documents that are supposed to be
> helpful, preferentially off list (I'll write a report for the
> list if we can get it working). I've tried a few things and
> they tend to belch for not being correct but they don't give me
> any clues about to correct them.
> --
>
> Walter M. Pawley <walt at wump.org>
> Wump Research & Company
> 676 River Bend Road, Roseburg, OR 97470
>          541-672-8975
>

Walt,

It was some ago, that I had the problem with ATI. ISTR that I used one of
the other config tools. Have a look at the FreeBSD page:

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x-config.html

There are other config tools listed.

I think I used xorgconfig and tried the various options starting at the
lowest resolutions until I got as far as possible.

As far as Changing to Nvidia that is just a matter of getting a Nvidia
card and swopping it with the ATI. Nvidia do have drivers on their site
for 3d etc with instructions on what to do.

Rob