W8/64 - Cant use ATI after nVidia ?

[FatRakoon]

Wow, this is annoying me.

the ATI 7770 and the nVidia GTX470 are about the same spec, and I have both of these cards, so last night, I thought Id have a look and compare the two. Purely out of simple curiosity more than anything.

Ok, did some plebbing about, and when I came to start the PC that had the RAD in originally, it simply gave me a blank screen instead of the silly cartoony landscape I have come to so love with win 8 ( LOL )

After many messing abouts, I find that putting the nVidia back in gives me the screen just fine, but the Radeon and all I get is a black screen... Oh and the mouse pointer, but nothing else?

I have gone through it as much as I can, I have uninstalled everything to do with both ATI and NV, even the Mobo drivers as they also use the ATI Drivers, but nothing has helped.

The thing here is, that I have then also just gone to my MediaCentre PC as thats also got ATI Mobo and GFX, plopped in the nVidia, installed the Drivers and guess what? Thats now doing the same too! - Not a worry as I am still messing about with the Media PC and its install of Win8 isnt legal and so Im only trialing it on that, but the fact remains.

When I am using an ATI, if I try an nVidia card and then go back to the ATI, using Windows 8, I cannot get the screen to come back up?

Any ideas?

 

[bledd]

I've never been a fan of swapping from one card to another during the same install. Same goes for motherboards.

In XP, I'd use a driver cleaner to do it, but I've never found the need to swap cards in Vista onwards

 

[FatRakoon]

Nor me. Well... Usually.

I have found many posts on t'internet about this very thing, but no actual cure thats worked.

With Win 8, I have tried bringing up a menu for safe mode, and indeed, I did manage it twice, one time I got it into actual safe mode, where I removed EVERYTHING to do with both ATI and NVIDIA drivers, and another time when I simply started it up with no VGA Driver, but it still went black, so those times never helped.

Every other time I have managed to get some kind of safe moe options thingy, It simply went into trying to repair itself and that always failed.

But, like I said, plonk an nVidia card in, and there comes the desktop nice and simple.

Bloody things... Where's my good ole Matrox ?

 

[Orcvader]

I know it's fine swapping between the two with XP, Vista and 7, but I never tried it with 8. From what you said, it seems like Nvidia is doing something to 8 that maybe does not allow AMD cards to work after you install an Nvidia card.

Also, both cards are not the same specs . The 7770 is a mid range card while the 470 is a high end card, the 7770 is more 460 level.

 

[FatRakoon]

Actually, for my needs, I would prefer to keep using the ATI

As for their difference, the 470 is definitely quicker than the ATI, but its by the tiniest of margins. To say one is mid range and the other high, is absolutely wrong.

3DMark for example scores 98k on the ATI and 101K on the 470. Hardly enough to categorize them differently, plus the ATI is almost twice as efficient with power requirements, and runs cool ( 33c ) even under load, while the nVidia is hot ( 47c ) even displaying the desktop.

I also have a knackered hand and can no longer play most of my usual games and so I have no need for a high end card at all, and so for me, the ATI is a vastly better option hands down than the nVidia.