Do I really need ATI proprietary drivers?

Question

Ever since I installed 11.04, I have problems with ATI. If I don't enable it, am I still able to use HDMI with no problems?

Answer 1

I couldn't say about HDMI, but my guess would be no.

However, there is a known problem with the ATI Proprietary driver. Actually, not sure what the problem is, but I know of a fix:

• Performance being really choppy with ATI drivers

Answer 2

I am using 11.10 without the proprietary drivers. HDMI works quite well with it. The only things not working are the sound through HDMI-out though and some OpenGL games. If you don't care about this, there's a great chance that you can use the open drivers. If they don't run out of the box, you could try adding ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates or even ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa (I wouldn't recommend the later for a stable working environment though).