[CentOS] ATI X550 chipset

[Bryan J. Smith]

Sam Drinkard <sam at wa4phy.net> wrote:
> I don't have the 550, but I do have the X600, and you must
> install the ATI proprietary drivers.

Yep.  I've also found that nVidia has been better about
supporting the 2D-only MIT drivers on newer cards before ATI,
although ATI _has_ been better in the last Xorg release (they
almost matched nVidia on cards supported by recent release
date).

> They do support hardware 3-D, but nothing much else
> besides dual monitors and TV out.  Really a big waste
> of an expensive card for what I'm doing.  You also will
> have problems during install if you try to use the 550.

Yeah, that's the Xorg drivers you're relying on.

Although I believe the nVidia 6200-6600 (NV43-44) aren't
fully supported by the RHEL/CentOS 4 installer, and only the
6800 (NV40), although they will probably "work okay."  I.e.,
you won't need to use the VESA installer.

The newer Xorg release from a few months adds newer NV4x
support, and even some new G70 support.  But that's only for
2D.

> Use a common card, then drop the 550 in after installing
> the drivers.

The VESA installer should work, unless ATI is no longer
supporting VESA BIOS Extentions (VBE) 2.0+.  I haven't
personally checked if the new nVidia GeForce 7800 (G70)
series does, but I know all of the GeForce 6200/6600/6800
(NV4x) do.


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