I have an ati 9800 pro 3d acceleration enable....my problem with it was I can never get past the 3000 fps in glxgears. The problem? Gnome and KDE. That's right. Here's Where ati is at fault....drivers not entirely stable as we wanted them to be...but no crashes either. Where does it get unstable? open up mozilla you'll lose 200 fps in glxgears...keep browsing without remaining in a single page it drops a good 400 fps...have alot of apps open? Litteraly close everything if you want to game.

With fluxbox or XFCE i get the same results:
25831 frames in 5.0 seconds = 5166.200 FPS
41078 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8215.600 FPS
41070 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8214.000 FPS
41081 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8216.200 FPS
41077 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8215.400 FPS
41084 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8216.800 FPS
41080 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8216.000 FPS
41085 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8217.000 FPS
41085 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8217.000 FPS
41090 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8218.000 FPS
41086 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8217.200 FPS
41089 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8217.800 FPS

i just opened up mozilla with glxgears running...look at the drop:

40545 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8109.000 FPS
40238 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8047.600 FPS
39906 frames in 5.0 seconds = 7981.200 FPS
40985 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8197.000 FPS
40971 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8194.200 FPS
39010 frames in 5.0 seconds = 7802.000 FPS
41010 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8202.000 FPS
39646 frames in 5.0 seconds = 7929.200 FPS
36895 frames in 5.0 seconds = 7379.000 FPS
39458 frames in 5.0 seconds = 7891.600 FPS
38088 frames in 5.0 seconds = 7617.600 FPS
33554 frames in 5.0 seconds = 6710.800 FPS
40484 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8096.800 FPS
33468 frames in 5.0 seconds = 6693.600 FPS
35090 frames in 5.0 seconds = 7018.000 FPS
39596 frames in 5.0 seconds = 7919.200 FPS
40038 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8007.600 FPS
40897 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8179.400 FPS
40635 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8127.000 FPS
40659 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8131.800 FPS


What this tells me? 3D graphics isn't that stable when you have other things running. If you have slackware as Desktop OS...it's perfect.

Problem is alot of people use glxgears while browsing and maybe chatting...Ati drivers maybe a bit senstive or unstable....but this shouldnt be a factor, since if you want the most out of your game chances are you will have to give up multitasking while playing.. Although the only other thing thats working is my adsl connection...but that doesn't do a thing to the graphics speed. So you can enjoy a good online game.

For those who already knew this, it was intended for the people who don't have the 3d acceleration they payed for.

One thing I'd like to add, for those who might read your thread.
The glxgears GLX demo that draws three rotating gears is supposed
to be run with the gear window maximized, not minimized. The
results will jump amazingly when one minimizes the windowand that's with Thunderbird, Firefox (10 tabs), XChat, Scribus,
and more stuff running than I care to mention.