I'm trying to get 3D working with my Sapphire 9600 with 256 MB.
Currently the card works only with the "vesa" driver. But with this settings, all 3D games are unplayable. Moreover after terminating a x-server my screen stays blank, so after telling KDE to power down my computer, the only way to know when I could switch my PC of is to hear my hard-drive switching into standby.
I've tried the "radeon" driver, but with this settings the graphical login manager (kdm) works for one or two seconds until the whole system hangs.
And I've tried to install the original ATI Linux driver, with the help of
h t t p ://xoomer.virgilio.it/flavio.stanchina/debian/fglrx-installer.html
I came up to that point that "modprobe fglrx" works (only the warning is displayed that the module is non GPL). But when I tried to replace "vesa" through "fglrx" in my XF886config-4 the system freezes.
I am using XFree 4.3 with Debian Sarge, my kernel is 2.4.25 and my chip-set is VIA KT266A.
I would like to play tuxcart with a bit more than 0.5 fps. (The game complains about a missing XFree86-DRI extension, but my XF86Config-4 includes 'Load "dri" ').
Oh, and is there a way to avoid loosing files if the system freezes?

I hope that someone could help me.
Thanks in advanced.

Did you try running fglrxconfig to configure your X-Server? There is a few other things in there that need to be set for it to work properly.

I recommend backing up you old XF86Config first so you can then go back and edit the created one for input devices and such.

I've tried fglrxconfig and run trough the configuration as described by
http ://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?s=&threadid=158435&perpage=15&pagenumber=1
but the system hangs after entering startx.

I've looked into XFree86.0.log and found the following error and warning messages:
(WW) fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:1:0:1) found
(--) Chipset ATI RV350 AP (R9600) found

(WW) fglrx(0): board is an unknown third party board, chipset is supported

(EE) fglrx(0): [agp] unable to acquire AGP, error "xf86_ENODEV"
(EE) fglrx(0): cannot init AGP
(II) fglrx(0): [drm] removed 1 reserved context for kernel
(II) fglrx(0): [drm] unmapping 8192 bytes of SAREA 0xf0a00000 at 0x40018000
(WW) fglrx(0): ***********************************************
(WW) fglrx(0): * DRI initialization failed! *
(WW) fglrx(0): * (maybe driver kernel module missing or bad) *
(WW) fglrx(0): * 2D acceleraton available (MMIO) *
(WW) fglrx(0): * no 3D acceleration available *
(WW) fglrx(0): ********************************************* *

Could not init font path element /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/, removing from list!
(EE) fglrx(0): FIFO timed out, resetting engine...

The last error message was the last entry in the log file.
Could anyone tell me what I need to reconfigure in my XF86Config-4 or what additional software I need to install?

Is this a custom built kernel? Because it sounds like there is something wrong with your kernel setup to me.

Have you considered going to a 2.6 kernel? I can strongly recommend it as I have had great results with them myself.

You could also try editing your XF86Config and trying both with and without the Internal AGP Gart on and off.

If you post your XF86Config I will take a look at it because there might just be a problem with it.

It could even just be coming down to the BusID in the file actually.

As long as the installation of the fglrx did not modified the kernel, it is the original debian kernel. After reading some other posts about debian and an ATI card, it seems like that the 2.6 kernel has more problems with fglrx than the 2.4 kernel.
In my XF86config-4 I have now set the option "UseInternalAGPGART" from "no to "yes", the result is that there are only the following warnings (no error messages) in the XFree86.0.log left:
(WW) Open APM failed (/dev/apm_bios) (No such device)
(WW) fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:1:0:1) found
(--) Chipset ATI RV350 AP (R9600) found
(WW) fglrx(0): board is an unknown third party board, chipset is supported

The graphical login (kdm) is starting without problems, but when I try to start kde or gnome the system freezes. :-( Login with the mode "failsafe" works and then I'm able to run glxgears (I'm getting 75000FPS), glxinfo and tuxcart.
After terminating Xfree, my screen is set to 720x400, but the monitor doesn't like this mode and is displaying only unreadable patterns.
How could I configure my XF86config so that kde is running properly?

your problem is the old one i use to have.
you have to recompile your kernel and disable support for "DRI"!!!
and enable support for onboard radeon chipset and compile all the radeon support thing as "M" or modules.
that will help u out

OK, a little bit more than a year later I tried it again with the current ATI driver and it worked at the first try.
What I did:

• Make a backup of /etc/X11/XF86Config-4
• apt-get install the right kernel-header (in my case kernel-headers-2.4.27-2-k7).
• Download the current ATI driver from the ATI website (the big executable file)
• Execute the ATI driver as root and follow the instructions (choose Install Driver, not Generate Distribution Specific Package)
• Run fglrxconfig as root and follow the instructions
• Reboot
• Enjoy some 3D games

A disadvantage I found so far: The X-Server seems to need a few secs more to start up.