i don't know, but i can tell you that i have an ATI Rage card and have not had many problems with mandrake 8.2 or 9.0 if that is any help. I find that what i had to do to get it working right was just to edit the /etc/XF86Config file and comment out the line that says 'load:glx'. ye gods, i have a really bad memory so i hope it does say that! basically it's a line near the top that tells the card to use hardware acceleration, basically you want to not use hardware acceleration and it will work.
that's my experience but my feeling is that if you have a different ati card, you might have a different problem, not sure. also, tell us a bit more about these drivers you got, what format they are in and how they are being installed et cetera.
