switching from Nvidia to ATI = problem?

D

Dra

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 4, 2004
Messages
196
My computer currently runs a Nvidia Geforce2 MX 64mb :rolleyes: and i've been wanting to upgrade to a card that can actually keep up with today's games. I've been thinking about the Radeon 9600 (non-pro) but i've been wondering if i'll have any problems switching my computer from Nvidia-based graphics to ATI-based.

would i need to take extra steps (aside from the normal installation procedures) to make the card work?
 
Hah, I'm in the same situation, formerly Geforce 2 MX, now a Radeon 9600. It's not going well. But then, I have a crappy nobody motherboard.

I know you should uninstall the Nvidia drivers (should be doable from Add/Remove Programs) before putting the ATI card in. I don't know what would happen if you don't, but if anything did happen it would probably be something bad.

If anything else should be done, I don't know it, but I'd certainly like to, because the knowledge would help me, too.
 
My main rig (sig) used to have the GF3 in my second rig (sig)... when I made the switch from the GF3 to the 9700 Pro all I did was:
-Uninstall the nVidia drivers (through add/remove programs)
-Shut down
-Swap the cards
-Boot back up
-Install the ATi drivers which I had downloaded to my harddrive beforehand

I have no problems.

And it's on an nForce2 motherboard, so don't worry about issues with that.

Basically just remember to get rid of the nVidia stuff before installing the ATi stuff and you won't have any problems.
 
To get the most performance out of your new card, the best thing you can do is to reformat and do a clean install of windows. Otherwise, remnants of Nvidia software tends to inhibit your 'best' performance. The same happens, I would imagine, if you moved from ATi to Nvidia.

There are also programs floating around that supposedly remove all traces of the Nvidia drivers from your system, but to be absolutely sure, a reformat is the way to go.

Just my 2 cents
 
Sadly, my computer is a out-of-the-box ready-to-use computer (compaq) so i have no windows installation disc, should i choose to reformat my HD. I guess my best bet would be to try and remove all remnants of of my Nvidia drivers.
 
I've run a Riva TNT, TNT2 M64, Geforce 2 MX, Radeon 9100, Geforce 4 Ti4200 and Radeon 9000 all on the same system.
You know how many times I've formatted and reinstalled since the changes?

not one damn time.
I never even uninstalled the older drivers. If I get a wild hair and decide to play with the 9100 it takes 2 minutes and one funky screwdriver.
I have read about driver problems between ATI and Nvidia more than enough to believe it can occur, but I haven't had that problem.

One little note that may be the difference. I use MSconfig to nuke the ATI proggy and Nvidia Nview program from loading. I installed their damn video card, not software. That is all I want, I've never had the slightest bit of trouble.
 
Yah, but you might as well not have a high end video card unless you're going to install and run the appropriate hardware drivers... Sure, you probably WON'T have driver conflicts if you just let windows recognize the device, but you're not going to see any amazing performance.....
 
You don't have to reformat. All you have to do is uninstall the nvidia drivers, swap cards, and then install ati drivers. You shouldn't have any problem. I recently did the same thing. I switched from a mx 440 to a 9500 pro and thats what I did. This was on a mediocore mobo. I had no problem.
 
Is this a video card forum or an "I dont know anything about nvidia drivers forum"? No one mentioned that you HAVE to use the nvidia "nasty file remover" to remove the files that can mess up other drivers! you can get it from www.guru3d.com ... gg guys what are you all blind and deaf?

~Adam
 
I'll say this and let it go.
How many of you manually remove NIC drivers, possibly wipe and reload, when swapping from a 3COM 3C905 to an Intel Pro chipset card?

I actually had the ATI controller program in startup on it once after I swapped back to the Geforce 2. It didn't load.

My 3dmark score was about 3000 before I tried the ATI cards, its about 3000 now. I can't baseline the ATI cards for certain before Nvidia drivers as that config never occured in my system, but I scored about 5500-5800 on my system with the 9100, which is about right for a Tbird 1.4/SDRAM with the drivers available at the time.

Uninstalling the old drivers isn't a bad idea, but I've never been forced to do it except when updating Nvidia or ATI drivers to a newer revision. I can certainly see that having an effect, old registry keys, old library files, etc, still being referenced when the hardware is activated with new drivers. The different cards are installed as totally different devices. Its not like Windows can only reference one device per device type.
 
Originally posted by jhtevans
There are also programs floating around that supposedly remove all traces of the Nvidia drivers from your system, but to be absolutely sure, a reformat is the way to go.
Click to expand...

Just to clear up the fact that I'm not blind and deaf......and dumb
 
Originally posted by jhtevans
Yah, but you might as well not have a high end video card unless you're going to install and run the appropriate hardware drivers...
Click to expand...
I think he installs the drivers, just not the extra control panel software or whatever that's an extra 10+ megs.
 
I recently changed from nvidia to an ati card and have had no problems. The key is getting all the nvidia crap outta your pc.
Here's how to do it:
Go to guru3d.com and grab detonator r.i.p. It requires that you already have the .net frame work installed in order to work. You can get the .net frame work from windows update. If you don't want to do that try detonator destroyer or nvcleaner.
After you get the program in question, go to control panel/ add remove programs and uninstall the current nvidia drivers. Shut down the pc, remove the card and install the ati card. Boot up, cancel the new hardware wizard. Run detonator r.i.p. or other nvidia remover. Install ati drivers.
That's how I did it and things have run without a hitch. Didn't even have to re-install any games. When launching a previously installed game, go to the setups and re-do the video display settings. You should be ok then. Some will recommend booting into safe mode and that's fine, but I found in windows XP it will still try to install a video driver in safe mode, so it doesn't matter much.
 
if you got nothing else to do ..then yeah reformat and reinstall everything fresh ... but if you got better things to do with your time ..then just download nvnastyfile remover or equivelant and uninstall nvidia card thru add/remove programs and then device manager ..(kinda redundant I know , but thorough none the less)

pop in the ATi card and hit cancel on the install window that will automatically pop up ..then run the nv nasty file remover proggy ..then install whatever flavor of Cat's that suites yer fancy
 
Originally posted by ThreeDee
if you got nothing else to do ..then yeah reformat and reinstall everything fresh ... but if you got better things to do with your time ..then just download nvnastyfile remover or equivelant and uninstall nvidia card thru add/remove programs and then device manager ..(kinda redundant I know , but thorough none the less)

pop in the ATi card and hit cancel on the install window that will automatically pop up ..then run the nv nasty file remover proggy ..then install whatever flavor of Cat's that suites yer fancy
Click to expand...

I just recently attempted this exact same method you explained...went from a GF Quadro 2 Pro to a 9600XT. Everything went GREAT until I tried to login after installing the ATI drivers (actually the control panel). I could install the drivers just fine...but when I installed the control panel, it wiped my user profile or something like that. I've never seen anything like it before. Everything was in the documents and settings like it should be...desktop items, favorites, local settings and email folders were all there...but wouldn't show up when I logged into my profile.

Spent until about 4am this morning trying to figure that out...finally said f*ck it and re-installed XP. I figured it needed it anyway...the wife had every instant messenger client known to man installed on here :rolleyes:
 
I hadn't run any special nvidia driver cleaners, just uninstalled with add/remove programs, stuck in the Radeon 9600, and installed the Catalyst drivers. I've been having serious problems, though, don't know the exact cause, but I figure running one of these driver cleaners is worth a shot. Would it be best to uninstall the Catalyst drivers before running an nvidia cleaner and then reinstall them after, or could I run one right now without problems?
 
In your case I would try running one of the nvidia cleaners first and see if that fixes you up. If that doesn't do it, I would try going into display properties and installing a generic vga driver, after you do that I would rerun the cleaner programs trying to clear out both the nvidia and ati files and all registry keys. Once it appears you might have things all cleared out, then install your driver of choice. Good luck, it sucks having to reformat and redo everything.
 
Originally posted by Mister Natural
Good luck, it sucks having to reformat and redo everything.
Click to expand...

true...but then there's always the handy dandy Ghost image of a fresh install... :)

I keep it handy on a spare hdd just in case. Just a fresh XP install with the chipset drivers, lan, and sound (basically everything that's built onto the motherboard)
 
You won't have a problem. Just uninstall, swap and reinstall. I just did this with an old GeForce2 and a 9700 pro.

You won't have any problem at all, its just hardware my man. You think you would have to reinstall if you were swapping a Riva TNT with an ATI Rage pro? Of course not. Same thing with modern cards.
 
Ya I did a fresh reinstall of XP after I reformatted so everything would work great. It did for a month or 2 and then everything just went weird. It only screws up with CoD though.

It is a good idea though if you have time on your hand and everything. I say go for it :D

-rahul
 
Originally posted by nst6563
I just recently attempted this exact same method you explained...went from a GF Quadro 2 Pro to a 9600XT. Everything went GREAT until I tried to login after installing the ATI drivers (actually the control panel). I could install the drivers just fine...but when I installed the control panel, it wiped my user profile or something like that. I've never seen anything like it before. Everything was in the documents and settings like it should be...desktop items, favorites, local settings and email folders were all there...but wouldn't show up when I logged into my profile.

Spent until about 4am this morning trying to figure that out...finally said f*ck it and re-installed XP. I figured it needed it anyway...the wife had every instant messenger client known to man installed on here :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

You never EVER let the wife near your computer. You ALWAYS build them one of their own :).

Cheers,

Mr. Pain
 
I went from nvidia to ATI and I didn't reformat or reinstall windows.

Here's the procedure I used:

* Unistall old video drivers
* Shut down computer
* Remove old card
* Put in new card
* Boot up
* Install new drivers


Voila. you're done - no reformat, fdisk, or reinstall of windows at all !!

I've got a billion apps that would take weeks to reinstall again.

So, reformating is not necessary at all - in fact, I advise against it unless you alreay have some existing problems.
 
Originally posted by Stanley Pain
You never EVER let the wife near your computer. You ALWAYS build them one of their own :).

Cheers,

Mr. Pain
Click to expand...
rotflmao
At least my wife isn't that bad... she works up my billing, she knows how much trouble people wind up with for having EVERYTHING THEY FIND ON THE INTERNET INSTALLED.

she still has her own computer tho... lol

My mom, on the other hand, doesn't like Trillian, so she has 4 different messengers rather than one plugged into 4 networks... takes her computer something like 5 minutes to get to Windows, another 5-10 to be responsive to inputs... and she wants me to upgrade it so it will be faster.

ok, upgrade as follows:
a:\
a:\format c: /q /s /u
 
Originally posted by LordBritish
I went from nvidia to ATI and I didn't reformat or reinstall windows.

Here's the procedure I used:

* Unistall old video drivers
* Shut down computer
* Remove old card
* Put in new card
* Boot up
* Install new drivers


Click to expand...

It is also a good idea to revert all video to 800 x 600 x 16 before uninstalling drivers.
 
thanks a lot for all of your replies. i'll be getting my 9600 next week, so i'll check back after i install it to tell you guys how the installation went.
 
yeah reminants of nvidia crap will still be in ur comp...either reformat...or find a prog dat can delete it totally...
I switched from geforce 2 MX to ati radeon 9600XT...and I didn't have any problems just because I got a new comp with the 9600XT haha :D (dun u just hate when I say that)...but what I suggest u do is reformat
 
i plan on using either NFR or Driver Cleaner to clean out all the remnants of the Nvidia drivers. i found the reformat disk that my comp came with the other day, so i'll use it as a last resort if i get problems even after running the cleaning proggys.
 
Originally posted by Dra
thanks a lot for all of your replies. i'll be getting my 9600 next week, so i'll check back after i install it to tell you guys how the installation went.
Click to expand...

Dude, you might as well give it a try with your current OS first...why go through all the trouble unless its absolutely necessary.
 
During some development a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I swapped out the following cards in a single WinXP machine over the course of about 3 months:

TNT2, Geforce 2, Geforce2 MX (pci), Geforce4 MX (pci), Geforce4 MX (AGP), Geforce4, Geforce FX 5700
ATI Rage 128, Radeon 7xxxx series, Radeon 8500, Radeon 9700
Matrox G200, G400, G550, Parhelia
S3 Savage 2000
SiS Xabre and family

In addition to this enough time passed 3-4 revs of NVIDIA and ATI drivers occured, I installed them all. I never once uninstalled anything, and swapped out the cards without regard to doing it 'properly'. Never had any trouble. Some of the NVIDIA PCI cards were also run multimon with ATI (8500 and 9700 AGP) as well for a while. ATI control panel tools seemed to be the only thing really annoyed at the loss of an ATI card, but that was about it.
 
Originally posted by Zoner
During some development a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I swapped out the following cards in a single WinXP machine over the course of about 3 months:

TNT2, Geforce 2, Geforce2 MX (pci), Geforce4 MX (pci), Geforce4 MX (AGP), Geforce4, Geforce FX 5700
ATI Rage 128, Radeon 7xxxx series, Radeon 8500, Radeon 9700
Matrox G200, G400, G550, Parhelia
S3 Savage 2000
SiS Xabre and family

In addition to this enough time passed 3-4 revs of NVIDIA and ATI drivers occured, I installed them all. I never once uninstalled anything, and swapped out the cards without regard to doing it 'properly'. Never had any trouble. Some of the NVIDIA PCI cards were also run multimon with ATI (8500 and 9700 AGP) as well for a while. ATI control panel tools seemed to be the only thing really annoyed at the loss of an ATI card, but that was about it.
Click to expand...
Did the same, except for the multimon between the ATI and Nvidia cards.
I still have ATI MMC installed with my Geforce 2 MX... lol
 
Originally posted by KingPariah777
Dude, you might as well give it a try with your current OS first...why go through all the trouble unless its absolutely necessary.
Click to expand...

like i said in the post above yours, i'll try using a cleaning program to remove the remnants of the old drivers. If that doesn't work out, then i'll reformat.
 
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