Video: Installing a New Graphics Card + Going From ATi -> nVidia and Back Again

[PatT]

Originally Posted by mesce

The drivers for the nforce chipset are called nforce x.x.x x= numbers. The ati one i am not familier with so someone might want to let me know what the ATi drivers are called for the ati express motherboards.

Just dont clean the nforce stick to the nvidia drivers.

Well im looking in driver cleaner now and all i see is on the following attachment, theres nothing mentioned of display, i know its not the chipset tab,

in driver cleaner.......
whats nvidia?
and whats wdm?

thanks

[dak1640]

Very nice guide Mesce

[mesce]

Originally Posted by PatT

Well im looking in driver cleaner now and all i see is on the following attachment, theres nothing mentioned of display, i know its not the chipset tab,

in driver cleaner.......
whats nvidia?
and whats wdm?

thanks

nvidia is the nvidia drivers.
WDM i think is for when you have more than one monitor.
Thsoe are the only thing you need to get rid of.

The nforce = chipset drivers.

[mindinversion]

LOL, Sorry Mesce, all I saw of that sticky was "From ATI to Nvidia", and discounted it.

I know the RIGHT way to upgrade my vid card, this was just one of those mind jobs that bugged the heck out of me. Sure, when you upgrade your vid card, you want to clean out/reinstall drivers, but in the case of 6600 GT to 7800 GT, you're uninstalling/reinstalling the SAME driver [81.95]

Would it work? Not work? Cause issues? I plan on cleaning out the drivers and reinstalling them, but again, they use the exact same driver . . .

It was just kind of a speculation thing.

[mesce]

It wouldnt work. If you did that it would still say new hardware added and want to install drivers.

Each card has its own unique id even that if you swapped a 7800gt for another gt it would prompt you saying new hardware added install drivers.

If you follow the instructions above you will get the most out of your card.

[Tylenol]

Originally Posted by mesce

Each card has its own unique id even that if you swapped a 7800gt for another gt it would prompt you saying new hardware added install drivers.
card.

Not sure if the vid card is marked down or not, but proof of what Mesce says for those non-believers, microsoft collects this info about your RAM, CPU, and HD when you do the activation for XP. Well, i think they do for the RAM...

[mesce]

Infact, while we are on this topic for a short amount of time.

If you have a sound card in the pci slot and you take it out and put it in a different pci slot then you also get prompted that new hardware is installed, this is because each pci slot has its own id of what is in it and what is not in it.

[gasper44]

At what point do you install the actual new card though,after running driver cleaner?

[mesce]

Yes after running driver cleaner.

[P.I.M.P_SLi]

Very nice Mesce! This what we need to link to when newbies need help.

[Asmoran]

Nice article mesce, but I don't agree with the reformat when changing manufacturers. You can use Driver Cleaner to remove all of the references in the registry, and it comes with Cab Cleaner to remove the references in the cab files.

I just changed from a 9800pro to a 6800GS with absolutely no problems. Just follow the directions that come with DriverCleaner.

[DSwarP]

Yeah, I really dont believe that either... BUT, im doing it right now, and I will have some results within a few hours...

I dont understand why it wouldnt WORK because you didnt reformat, because mine always have, but performance wise, I want to see if it makes a difference... This computer has gone like this... 7800GT > 6800GS > X850XT > 6800XT without any actual problems... performance wise, I dont know what kind of hit it has taken. Right now im gonna do a fresh format/install and compare the 3Dmark scores... see if theres any performance gain...

[mesce]

Be sure to let us know, Im certain you will have gained quite a few extra 3dmarks

[DSwarP]

Well thats what I'm hoping for. Either to gain some marks while validating your theory, or disprove it One of the two

The reason I am doing it is because I got this card, and was looking at peoples stock 3dmark scores, and they were getting slightly less than what I was getting with it overclocked like mad. So I figured something was up... hopefully this is it. If it was... ****, my scores will be nuts... I got less than 3400 stock 3dmark05 with this card, and overclocked im up to just under 4500... people were saying with this card STOCK they were getting 4000-4500, so yeah... definatley going to put me over 5K if this changes things... and if that is the case, im getting another and putting them in SLI... would be looking at minimum 7K, possibly over 8K... wouldnt be too bad...

[mesce]

And also if its right you can thank for the guide and preach reformatting between ati and nVidia cards

[Richdog]

I swapped from a 7800GT to a 6200TC simply by add/remove programs and it works 100% fine at full speed (if you can say 6200 and "speed" in the same sentence), driver cleaner is only needed when going from ATI to Nvidia or vice versa in my experience.

OK guide, but the big letters look really silly.

[DSwarP]

Originally Posted by mesce

And also if its right you can thank for the guide and preach reformatting between ati and nVidia cards

Will do. And I agree. The big letters are silly.

[mesce]

lol, its old English style manuscripture

[Richdog]

Originally Posted by mesce

lol, its old English style manuscripture

*cough* If you say so.

[DSwarP]

And the verdict is in. *drumroll*

My score only improved by about 100 points. Blah.

Also, OCed score is like 100 points higher too.