Did avid ever come out with driver support for the ATI graphics cards

Nope.  Avid still recommends / requires nVidia cards for PC.  You might have some luck searching the forum for posts by members using ATI who have had varying levels of success.

Hello,


I have two editing systems, the HP xw8200 with a Quadro FX card, and the d4100e Dual Core Athlon 64x, with a ATI x1600 video card, I had installed Avid Xpress Pro 5.6.2 with Mojo on both machines, for my surprise I do not get any errors on the System with the ATI video card and Athlon Processors. I am able to capture, edit, export and playback audio  and video without any problem.

thanks for reporting. It might help other users if you publish the specs (including driver versions!) of the ATI system in detail

I'm looking to buy a new pc, but would like to edit on it with Avid Media Composer

What do you know about the following graphic card?

Will it be able to handle a Media Composer?

 

MSI R4870-T2D512-OC Radeon R4870 512MB GDDR5, TV-out, HDMI, Double DVI, Crossfire ready, Retail

 

Core/Memory

780MHz Core
512MB GDDR5 2000MHz Memory
Memory Data Rate – 4.0 Gbps GDDR5

Video Output Function
Dual-link DVI-I x2 
TV-Out (via S-Video to Composite)/HDTV-out
VGA (via DVI to D-Sub adaptor)
HDMI (DVI to HDMI adaptor)

Only nVidia Quadro FX series cards are supported.  Anything else is a risk.  If you're buying/building a new system, it is highly recommended you use a "supported" card.

I think it is a great video card and absolutely wrong for Avid.  The best favor that you can do for yourself is buy an nVidia card, preferrably a Quatro.  Avid doesn't spec those cards to spite ATI fans, they do it because their software works best on Quatro cards in Windows.

"... because their software works best on Quatro cards  ..."

Specifically, nVidia's implementation of Open GL.