graphics drivers

[cayalee]

hi all, im running suse 9.1 and theres a couple of 3d games i'd really like to run but cant.
i'm using an ATI radeon 9600xt, which works fine in 2d mode but a look at sax2/yast tells me that there is currently no 3d built in support for it. ive downloaded th driveres for the card off the ati website but have broken my system numerous times finding out i have neither a compiler, other commands (make etc) or the actual know how to compile/install them myself.
now ive got all the gear i need, is there actually any benefit to installing the ati drivers at all? ive noticed the petition against ati, and i really could do without breaking my system again just to get canonsmash and that lightcycle game to look good.
can anyone give me any advice?
cheers

[borromini]

Take a look in these forums, there is a howto somewhere, it contains all the useful info about ATI 3D support, but it's a pain though, i've already tried it three times, and it still doesn't work - and yes I messed up the first time also

[Samoth]

I can do 3D graphics with an old ATI Rage. I told X about it in my xorg.conf