why video card acts differently in linux
 

a very new newbie. much suprise that on installing suse10 the system configured the hardware for me.on poking around the system I noticed that my video card (ati 9250se) had not been configured for 3d acceleration. I'm no gamer, and I understand that linux is not a gamers platform. but I would like to run simple games with 3d acceleration, so i enabled this and to my suprise this locks up the system. this card is admittedly a low end card but works perfectly well under the "other " sides system using 3d acceleration and even plays some quite beefy games , why? please. is there an article I can read on this.Thanks for any comments or help you can give

Maybe you need to install the official ATI Linux drivers. If you are using Linux, its usually better to invest in an nvidia graphics card because the official 3d drivers are easy to install and work very well and ATIs can sometimes be a pain to setup.

Thanks redazz , I thought it might be a driver problem,I will try ati drivers for linux from ati first , if they dont work will take your advice and invest in a nvidia card. many thanks.

Just as an FYI, I ran the "Auto-Installer" program on ATI's website, and it was the easiest install of drivers I've ever done. Even easier than the last time I installed them in Windows! :D

nice to know, ati's driver instalations used to be a nightmare