Got me a 5850... Some Nvidia to ATI install ?'s

loafer87gt

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 2, 2005
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446
So my folks being the awesome parents they are got me a 5850 for Christmas. I am just wondering what the best way to go about installing the new card. I have read some people that say that a complete OS re-install is necessary when going from Nvidia to ATI, and other's who say they simply uninstalled the old Nvidia drivers, plugged in their new ATI card, and installed the ATI drivers when prompted. Just wondering what experiences the collective at [H]ard have had when going from team green to team red.

Also, I was thinking about keeping my old 8800GTX card to use for physx. Would I be best to remove my old card and make sure my 5850 is running smoothly before trying to get both cards to play together? To enable the secondary Nvidia physx card, do you need to have the Nvidia drivers installed alongside the ATI ones? Does this not confuse the heck out of the OS?

I am using Windows 7 Professional, by the way, on an Intel Bad Axe 2 motherboard.

Thanks in advance for any help!

J
 
you dont need to reformat (tho I usually do with a new piece of major hardware) just wipe nvidia drivers and install the ati ones
 
A complete OS reinstall from going green <--> red? No reason whatsoever to do that, unless you really really feel like doing that. Uninstall current drivers, shutdown box, install new card, install new drivers is usually enough. I'm sure someone will chime in with another method.
 
Here's what I do.
Download driver sweeper or drivercleaner.net, download the ATI graphics package.
disconnect from the internet
Use nvidia uninstall from add/remove and uninstall all drivers that deal with graphics.
Run driversweeper in safe mode 2 or three times.
Power off, remove your nvidia hardware,put in your new shiny 5850.

Restart the comp,install your ATI drivers.

You are now safe to move about the cabin.:D

As an aside, I do not think you can use an nvidia card for physX if you have an ATI primary unless you hack the drivers......it an nvidia pissy fit move. There's a work-around somewhere in the forums.
 
Maybe all that was relevant 5-10 years ago, but I have moved between ATI and Nvidia quite a few times in Vista/7 and all I do is uninstall the current driver with the built in uninstaller, shutdown and swap cards, boot up and install new driver. All done.

Modern OS's tend themselves nicely to modern methods.
 
Uninstall nVidia drivers, shut down PC, remove nVidia card, insert ATi card, boot, install latest ATi drivers. Sorted.

YES!

A simple uninstall of the drivers is typically all that is needed, the only time you need to use driver cleaners or take any other steps is if you actually run into a problem which is rare now a days.
 
Something else to remember with regards to hardware is that Vista and 7 are much, much more hardware agnostic than XP and before. I have swapped an entire system out from under Vista and it worked. Needed drivers for the new hardware, of course, but it booted and worked fine, even without removing the old ones.

Of course wiping the old drivers is always the best idea, but you'll discover that 7 is far less picky about getting new hardware than you are used to with previous OSes.
 
Something else to remember with regards to hardware is that Vista and 7 are much, much more hardware agnostic than XP and before. I have swapped an entire system out from under Vista and it worked. Needed drivers for the new hardware, of course, but it booted and worked fine, even without removing the old ones.

Of course wiping the old drivers is always the best idea, but you'll discover that 7 is far less picky about getting new hardware than you are used to with previous OSes.


but then at times it freaks out with a simple memory stick change or a cpu change.. ive had that happen a few times.. swapped between a sempron 3100 and a sempron 3000+ and vista went apeshit on me.. i mean heck both even run at the same exact speed and yet it got mad.. but then ive swapped between my athlon x2 6400+ and x2 be-2350 and vista and windows 7 had no problem with it.. just certain things cause it to freak out.. but as far as video drivers its not very picky at all.. you can usually leave both drivers installed and it wont care.. since you can run a nvidia and ATI card in the same system with windows vista/7
 
Here's what I do.
Download driver sweeper or drivercleaner.net, download the ATI graphics package.
disconnect from the internet
Use nvidia uninstall from add/remove and uninstall all drivers that deal with graphics.
Run driversweeper in safe mode 2 or three times.
Power off, remove your nvidia hardware,put in your new shiny 5850.

Restart the comp,install your ATI drivers.
Why do people keep spreading this FUD? This isn't 2004, its 2009. Try doing installing/uninstalling drivers now without those ridiculous driver cleaner programs, I guarantee it will work just fine.

Those programs are only for the one in a billion chance that the drivers didn't uninstall properly because your windows install is fucked already or your running some oddball configuration.
 
Why do people keep spreading this FUD? This isn't 2004, its 2009. Try doing installing/uninstalling drivers now without those ridiculous driver cleaner programs, I guarantee it will work just fine.

Those programs are only for the one in a billion chance that the drivers didn't uninstall properly because your windows install is fucked already or your running some oddball configuration.

I am not entirely convinced what you are saying is true.
To run drivercleaner, takes an additional 3 or 4 minutes during a driver installation......it requires no physical work, so I see it as a non-issue.
If you do have a problem, what would your next step be???

I just see it as the most complete way to install new drivers, especially when changing from one vendor to the other, with a completely different driver program.
I'm merely stating what I do as a routine. It works well for me and I don't ever seem to have any driver problems, and I swap out cards frequently.

Your opinion is just that....and so is mine.
 
I am not entirely convinced what you are saying is true.
Have you done it any other way in the past few years? Try it out. Install an Nvidia card under Vista or Win7. Then uninstall the drivers and the card using Windows built in uninstaller only. Install an ATI card and its drivers. Should work fine. I don't know why you want to single me out on this...there are several other people in this thread who all agree that running Driversweeper is an old an archaic method of doing things. Does it work? Debatable. Only when there's a problem to begin with, like using older drivers under XP. Does it give peace of mind? Yes. Is it necessary? Only when Windows can't completely uninstall the drivers, which used to happen often in XP pre-SP2 and rarely happened after that. I have yet to see any use for it under Vista and Win7.

I'll admit I used to do it that way a lot back in the day. But the last time I used it was when I was having issues with an ATI All-in-Wonder X1900 under Windows XP...sometime back in 2006. I had issues getting the built in tv tuner to work properly, then I used that method to fix the issue. Soon after I stopped using it all together because ATI got there shit together with their drivers.
Since then, I have used the built in Windows uninstall program with zero issues. I also update my video card drivers every 2 months, and have gone through 3 video cards since then.
 
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Yeah those things are old wives tales now. It's even possible to just install new Nvidia driver versions on Windows 7 without first uninstalling the previous one and without a reboot and everything goes fine.
 
Have you done it any other way in the past few years? Try it out. Install an Nvidia card under Vista or Win7. Then uninstall the drivers and the card using Windows built in uninstaller only. Install an ATI card and its drivers. Should work fine. I don't know why you want to single me out on this...there are several other people in this thread who all agree that running Driversweeper is an old an archaic method of doing things. Does it work? Debatable. Only when there's a problem to begin with, like using older drivers under XP. Does it give peace of mind? Yes. Is it necessary? Only when Windows can't completely uninstall the drivers, which used to happen often in XP pre-SP2 and rarely happened after that. I have yet to see any use for it under Vista and Win7.

I'll admit I used to do it that way a lot back in the day. But the last time I used it was when I was having issues with an ATI All-in-Wonder X1900 under Windows XP...sometime back in 2006. I had issues getting the built in tv tuner to work properly, then I used that method to fix the issue. Soon after I stopped using it all together because ATI got there shit together with their drivers.
Since then, I have used the built in Windows uninstall program with zero issues. I also update my video card drivers every 2 months, and have gone through 3 video cards since then.

I used your box to reply to because you were so passionate about it.
My point is, there may be more than one way to do something.
I find nothing wrong or incorrect with what I do, or what you do.
I was not ranting that my way was the only way, in fact I prefaced it with:"this is what I do"

I am sure, as always, there is more than one opinion on how to do something.

As I said, the method I use leaves me with no issues once I have installed new drivers.

The tone of the conversation tends to make one believe that registry cleaners should have gone out with the demise of the telegraph.:D
 
I am not entirely convinced what you are saying is true.
To run drivercleaner, takes an additional 3 or 4 minutes during a driver installation......it requires no physical work, so I see it as a non-issue.
If you do have a problem, what would your next step be???

I just see it as the most complete way to install new drivers, especially when changing from one vendor to the other, with a completely different driver program.
I'm merely stating what I do as a routine. It works well for me and I don't ever seem to have any driver problems, and I swap out cards frequently.

Your opinion is just that....and so is mine.
I'm convinced he is. With Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 (definately 100% with Vista and 7), I have been able to change video cards from Nvidia to ATI (and back) with nothing more than the process ir0nw0lf detailed (the standard, straight foward process).
 
I'm convinced he is. With Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 (definately 100% with Vista and 7), I have been able to change video cards from Nvidia to ATI (and back) with nothing more than the process ir0nw0lf detailed (the standard, straight foward process).

As I said, it is simply the way I prefer............I am not an evangelist for drivercleaner, it's just something I prefer to do.
I'm glad you are comfortable with what you do.
 
As I said, it is simply the way I prefer............I am not an evangelist for drivercleaner, it's just something I prefer to do.
I'm glad you are comfortable with what you do.

What we are getting at is why (specifically) you prefer to do something that is no longer needed and hasn't been since the release of Vista.
 
I don't see any reasons you couldn't just remove the old card (while the machine is powered off), install the new card, boot it up, and install the drivers for the ATI

Windows will do the rest, if it doesn't see a NV card, what would make you think that it would use NV drivers for that card?

Windows isn't that stupid ;)

PS: I don't see any reason because I have done this ;) MANY TIMES

OH and on another thought, Windows comes with NV and Ati generic drivers already installed, any one ever installed a NV card and had Windows install Ati generic drivers.?... Didn't think so.
 
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