Coming back to Nvidia--how to rid myself of ATI drivers and get up and running?

T

tordogs

Gawd
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This is a rather noobish question but just ordered the GTX 580 to replace my 5870. Nothing particularly wrong with the 5870 except it has never been useful for folding. That is one thing I enjoy. Am coming back to Nvidia (still miss the old GTX 285 I gave away).

Question is, what is the easiest way to get rid of the ATI drivers and get the Nividia card working? Really hate to reformat if I don't have to. Have read numerous posts about safe mode, driver sweepers, deleting from control panel or device manager--it all sounds a bit daunting.

What do you folks suggest as the quickest, easiest way to make the switch? Have Asus P6X58D MB, i7960, 850W PS, SSD, Antec case if any of that helps. Mostly just curious how to get rid of and reinstall proper drivers.

May have a 5870 to give away or sell cheap!

Thanx a bunch.
 
Thanks for the suggestion. Have downloaded the driver sweeper to use when the new card gets here. The sweeper has some suggestions on how to use it and might have a readme that will help. Guess I will try it in safe mode since that seems to be the best way. Forgot about the HDMI thing so will look for that, too. Hoping the new card has a CD with the proper Nvidia driver as not sure which one to use. Hope the 580 will fold OK and be quieter and cooler than the 480's. If it does, the XFX 5870 is up for grabs!
 
I've never once had a problem with the stock uninstaller ATI supplies. Furthermore in the age of Terabytes, whats a few Megabytes of lost hard drive space to unused code.
 
MrWizard6600 said:
I've never once had a problem with the stock uninstaller ATI supplies. Furthermore in the age of Terabytes, whats a few Megabytes of lost hard drive space to unused code.
Click to expand...
It's not the space that the driver might take up on the harddrive, it's all the junk it leaves in the registry, or loading at startup.

@Tordogs: It's possible that there will be even newer foreware available from nvidia, bugs in the drivers are often found after the card has been packaged for retail sale (probably at least a month). Just run driver sweeper, it does an excellent job, then install the new nvida drivers and you should be golden.
 
avddreamr said:
It's not the space that the driver might take up on the harddrive, it's all the junk it leaves in the registry, or loading at startup.

@Tordogs: It's possible that there will be even newer foreware available from nvidia, bugs in the drivers are often found after the card has been packaged for retail sale (probably at least a month). Just run driver sweeper, it does an excellent job, then install the new nvida drivers and you should be golden.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm not worried about losing space but just pieces of leftover driver fouling up the works. Read horror stories about it. I've never changed video card brands midstream so that is why I have the questions. Guess the release is not just paper because Baseline Telecommunications sure took my credit card and said the GTX 580 would ship tomorrow.

I did some business with them on a ZR24w monitor and had no problems at all. Even had a leftover voucher I used on this purchase to bring the price down a bit. Shipping was only $2.00 and no tax.

Have no idea about PNY but the first hands-on Linus did at Tech Tips with the 480 was a PNY and he was pretty pumped by it. Have 30 days to return if it isn't all it should be. Guess I better hold on to the 5870 until then!

Wish I could get better specs on how much power it takes, what exact connectors (am thinking 8-pin + 6-pin), etc. Guess I'll know in 2-3 days.
Thanks again.
 
avddreamr said:
It's not the space that the driver might take up on the harddrive, it's all the junk it leaves in the registry, or loading at startup.
Click to expand...

what junk?

I've swapped video cards on a functioning machine dozens of times: never had an issue.

Its not 95' an more, the registry and your part in cleaning it up is not a mysterious concept anymore. Software devs --especially huge ones-- are well aware of this.
 
MrWizard6600 said:
what junk?

I've swapped video cards on a functioning machine dozens of times: never had an issue.

Its not 95' an more, the registry and your part in cleaning it up is not a mysterious concept anymore. Software devs --especially huge ones-- are well aware of this.
Click to expand...
Yeah the same huge software developers that write the drivers, that fail constantly. If I was swapping from Nvidia to AMD or vice versa I'd reformat without putting much thought into it.
 
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