The display, especially fonts, looks ugly on my Compaq Armada e500 laptop.

I'd link to a screenshot to show what I mean, but the screenshots all look fine on my desktop.

It think the problem is that it's using the Vesa driver, even though the Rage Mobility 128 8Mb (which is detected as a Radeon) is supported. It could also be my non-standard screen. I know in Linux I needed a special modeline to get the full 1400x1050, but 1024x768 worked without it.

In an unrelated problem, my sound, which is also supported (ESS Maestro-2), doesn't work.

What resolution is BeOS running at? Maybe hardware scaling to your TFT resolution is what looks ugly?

Are you sure the Rage Mobility 128 is supported? I can't see any drivers on bebits. Seems strange to me that it is seen as a Radeon - AFAIK the Radeon and Rage are quite different.

I've tried 800x600, 1024x768, and 1280x1024. Only 800x600 looks good, but that's too low for me.

Here's the list of supported ATI cards:

ATI 3DRage II, 3DRage Pro, 3DRage Pro Turbo, 3DRage LT Pro chipset-based cards, such as:
ATI All-in-Wonder, All-in-Wonder Pro, Xpert@Work, Xpert@Work Pro, Xpert98
ATI RAGE FURY Pro, Rage128Pro
Plain Radeon (i.e. before the numbering started)
Radeon 7000, Radeon 7000 VE, PCI-ID 5159
Radeon VE 64 MB, PCI-ID 5159
Radeon 7500, Radeon 8500 (64 MB)
Radeon All-in-Wonder 8500 (128 MB), PCI-ID 514c
Hercules Radeon 8500LE
Radeon 8500LE, Radeon 8500 (64 MB), PCI-ID 514c
Radeon Mobility 8 MB & 32 MB, PCI-ID 4c59
IBM Thinkpad T30 (Radeon 7500 Mobility)
Radeon 7500 Mobility (64 MB)
Dell Inspiron 8100 (Radeon 7500 Mobility, 64 MB), PCI-ID 4c57
Radeon 9000pro (no multi-monitor support), PCI-ID 4966

My card isn't exactly mentioned in the list, but it should be supported. In Linux I just used the ATI driver, and I'm guessing it's pretty much the same for Be.

The problem, if it wasn't clear from my first post, IS scaling. It seems vertically stretched, causing some rows of pixels to be doubled.

Both Linux and Windows work in both 1024x768 and 1400x1050, so it has to be a driver issue. Is there anything I can do about it? It seems like I'm stuck with Vesa, which probably won't look good no matter what I tinker with.

How do you change your screen sizes?
Do you use the VesaAccepted or Screen or Radeon Screen settings?
Only the vesa app would change the screen if you are using vesa. The installed correct driver uses the preferences settings for screen or radeon screen.

It seems you have a lot of drivers installed and you don't know which one is being used.

It is not the same for BeOS as Linux - there is no ATI driver that handles all ATI cards.

In your list of cards above the first few are natively supported. Rage Fury is probably the driver from bebits http://www.bebits.com/app/2372. Rage 128 pro is probably http://www.bebits.com/app/1259.
Then the radeon stuff is probs http://www.bebits.com/app/2938.

I would remove all graphics drivers (should be three) from /boot/beos/system/add-ons/kernel/drivers/bin and /boot/beos/system/add-ons/accelerators/ and see what happens. It will probably go to vesa mode. Then add them back one by one to see which one it is using. If it is using any of the three non-native drivers then is is probably that they do not properly support your Rage Mobility 128 and give you the vertical pixel doubling effect.
If that is the case you will have to go back to the Vesa one - use the Vesa Accepted app and set the resolution and colour depth to something that works OK.

jefro, That's why I assumed it was using Vesa. I can only change the settings in Vesa, but for whatever reason, it detects the Radeon and gives me a screen control for it.

danio, I didn't install any drivers. I assumed it came with the drivers I needed. I just copied that list from the supported hardware list, figuring all those cards were supported by default. Anyway, I found a "mobility" driver at BeBits, and it's working great (still thinks it's a Radeon, though). I even get 1400x1050.

Thanks for the help.