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Moving from Nvidia to ATI

MrRoper

MrRoper

MrRoper

Associate
Joined
15 Aug 2008
Posts
890
Hi guys,

Just ordered a 5850 so I can replace my softth setup for iRacing.

Just wondering on the best process of swapping the cards, i.e. removing old drivers etc, as I have always rebuilt other times. Would like to not have to this time if possible :)

thanks in advance
 
Your old drivers will be ignored, you can leave them in place if you want. If you installed any of the taskbar crud you can just remove it with add/remove programs.
 
what is your current setup?

You need to completely remove ALL nvidia drivers before even adding you ati card otherwise you'll have countless driver issues etc.

Best thing would be a clean install of your OS so that there are no conflicts
 
magicroundabout said:
what is your current setup?

You need to completely remove ALL nvidia drivers before even adding you ati card otherwise you'll have countless driver issues etc.

Best thing would be a clean install of your OS so that there are no conflicts
Click to expand...
jup, remove the drivers completly, unless you want a unstable system
 
uninstall old drivers , then in safe mode use driver sweeper to remove whats left of the old drivers then reboot in normal mode install new gpu drivers
 
No driversweeper!

Just uninstall the nvidia drivers from add/remove programs...shut down, remove nvidia card, install new ati card...boot up and install latest cat drivers. Reboot.

job done
 
Drivercleaner and Driversweeper are known to cause problems. There's no point in using them when add/remove does a perfectly fine job. It doesn't matter if there are a few dlls or reg entries left.
 
current setup is

GTX 280 and 8800 gtx driving softth

evga 780i MB witha q6600

I presume the nforce drivers stay on?

So the concensous is

Uninstall using add/remove
shut down
Remove both cards
put new card in
reboot
install ati drivers

sounds good?
 
psychas said:
uninstall old drivers , then in safe mode use driver sweeper to remove whats left of the old drivers then reboot in normal mode install new gpu drivers
Click to expand...

+1

Have done this - without issues- moving from nvid to ati and back again. If you've got a nvid or ati chipset/sound drivers which you will continue to use you only delete the drivers (graphics probably) that you no longer need :D
 
Last edited:
I can vouch for this, definatly re-install your OS if you are changing from Nvidia to ATI or vice versa.

I had so many problems it wasn't funny.
 
You just need to remove your drives/software the best way to do this is from the add/remove program/feature section, immediately shut down, swap cards, boot up, reinstall the latest offical drivers.

You DO NOT need to reinstall windows, and you probably won't need to use a driver cleaner.

"Driver cleaner" software are helpful if you actually run into problems but aren't necessary for a standard swap of cards. Usualy the only time you need to use a driver cleaner is if an uninstaller application crashes and doesn't finish removing registry keys and registered dlls.

Some people swear by a reinstall of windows or using driver cleaner because they ran into a problem 1 time and this worked, but i've installed a great many video cards over a great many OS's and swapped camps lots of times and this isn't common by any means.

Go back 5+ years and these problems were more common for sure, but with modern cards and upgrades it's only when there's an external problem effecting the uninstallers do you get any serious issues.
 
DeadMan said:
I can vouch for this, definatly re-install your OS if you are changing from Nvidia to ATI or vice versa.

I had so many problems it wasn't funny.
Click to expand...

This to be fair.

Though I always find it much less painful moving from ATI to Nvidia. My last move in the other direction (8800gt to 4870 512mb) actually resulted in a drop in performance until I re-installed the OS.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
You just need to remove your drives/software the best way to do this is from the add/remove program/feature section, immediately shut down, swap cards, boot up, reinstall the latest offical drivers.

You DO NOT need to reinstall windows, and you probably won't need to use a driver cleaner.

"Driver cleaner" software are helpful if you actually run into problems but aren't necessary for a standard swap of cards. Usualy the only time you need to use a driver cleaner is if an uninstaller application crashes and doesn't finish removing registry keys and registered dlls.

Some people swear by a reinstall of windows or using driver cleaner because they ran into a problem 1 time and this worked, but i've installed a great many video cards over a great many OS's and swapped camps lots of times and this isn't common by any means.

Go back 5+ years and these problems were more common for sure, but with modern cards and upgrades it's only when there's an external problem effecting the uninstallers do you get any serious issues.
Click to expand...

I was of the same opinion until I installed the 5970, it was all downhill from that point onwards.

I re-installed and it solved most of the issues I was having but still left the dreaded driver woes.. so I returned the card as for £530 quid I am not a willing participant in ATI's beta program. (Displayport didn't like my monitor either but thats another story)

Went back to freshly installed machine with ATI drivers, un-installed them via the Un-install program and thought It would be OK.

Installed my 2 GTX280's back in and installed the drivers and I was greeted with a BSOD.

Several BSODs later and thinking consoles really are the way of the future I re-installed Windows 7 again and all is well.

Just my 2 pence.
 
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