don't know much about the ati drivers but have you tried installing new drivers? which driver are you using now? if it's a generic driver (vesa or fbdev) it doesn't support 3d so you need new drivers. that will probably cause a headache from what i've read here and other forums. i have a laptop too, but with an nvidia chip. that's not flawless either but a lot easier. hope someone with an ati card can help you out.

on the subject of 2d games, frozen bubble rulez, but you probably know it already. i've had some success running old windblows game in winex/cedega, red alert 2 for example