SuSE

I have a ATI Radeon 9600 Pro gfx card and was trying to figure out how to enable 3d support in linux. I had downloaded the ATI driver before and installed it and I ended up having to reinstall linux because it told me I was supposed to do something to some file that I didn't do so it restarted and wouldn't login or startx. So I just need a walkthrough lol. Another thing was does linux have bass and treble controls like Windows does? Just a note in case you need to know I have a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card.

You will have to look in the Xorg documentation for specifics on your card, such as if it has a certain driver for the ATI card. This website may be of help.

http://www.freedesktop.org/~xorg/X11R6.8.0/doc/ati.html

You may need to edit the xorg.conf file to enable some options.

For the soundcard, if alsa is installed, then you should run the alsaconf program for soundcard selection. Then run alsamixer for adjusting the various levels.

All I see in alsamixer is volume settings for speakers, headphones, microphones and 3d surround. I don't see any bass or treble controls.

Then it is possible Alsa does not fully support your card. You may need to investigate this further.
With my SoundBlaster card, there is about 50 various adjustments to make.