i found the solution!!
firstly, i use gentoo...
I wasn't emerging the newest (unstable??), i was using the newest stable ati-drivers (8.10.12 i think it was) and i am using a very new vanilla kernel (2.6.12.1). i ran "emerge ati-drivers" but i couldn't load the fglrx module by doing this: "modprobe fglrx". it said the module wasn't found. so, i ran this command "echo "media-video/ati-drivers ~x86" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords" to allow the newest x86 version, whether or not it's stable, to be emerged. i then ran "emerge ati-drivers" and it installed the newest one (8.14.13-r6 i believe).
now, it loads fglrx and i have 3d acceleration  . i used to run glxgears at ~260 FPS, now it's up to ~4500 FPS. i've been trying to fix this forever and i can't believe the solution was that simple  |