Question Is DDU still needed when switching from AMD to Nvidia cards?

[AnitaPeterson]

Hi folks,

It used to be that whenever one would switch camps from Team Red to Team Green (or vice-versa), we had to uninstall the drivers and also run a third-party uninstaller like DDU.

Is this still the recommended procedure?

I'll be moving a RX 570 from my HTPC to another machine, and replace it with a 1650 Super. And I'm wondering if I need to run an AMD cleanup utility.

...

Also, I was pretty surprised to discover MSI doesn't bundle a driver disc with their cards anymore - they're asking customers to download the drivers from the MSI site instead.

 

[thesmokingman]

It was never absolutely needed but it is helpful especially for the windows gpu driver update disabling.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

It was never absolutely needed but it is helpful especially for the windows gpu driver update disabling.

Is the automatic driver update an issue on Windows 7?
I thought it was a Win10 exclusive... (damn M$ and their control obsession)

 

[thesmokingman]

Is the automatic driver update an issue on Windows 7?
I thought it was a Win10 exclusive... (damn M$ and their control obsession)

It's the same issue 7 or 10, windows auto updates the gpu driver whenver a new driver is pushed out by MS. That can be really freaking annoying after you've tweaked your system.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Alright, so the short story is that I had to nuke the OS on both systems.

On the first machine, I ran both the AMD cleanup utility and DDU (in safe mode), then physically removed the RX 570 and installed the 1650S.

The system booted just fine, but then I discovered several items in my Device Manager with exclamation marks. Also, several version of GeForce drivers refused to install (errorred during installation). Multiple procedural attempts to install drivers failed miserably. Ended up installing an older driver from a CD that came with another card - and the only way in which I was able to complete the install was in Safe Mode. And the Nvidia control panel kept crashing every time I tried to launch it.

So I ended up installing Win10 (the machine was running Win7 before), and everything went smooth. No more unknown devices, no more failed drivers.

On the second machine (which had a GTX950), I ran DDU in safe mode then physically removed the card. After installing the RX570 and its newest drivers, everything seemed fine, but then I discovered the Windows cursor kept flashing "busy" every other second. Terribly annoying! Several solutions found online did not solve the problem, so I ended up reinstalling the OS here as well (Win7).

Maybe I'm particularly unlucky, but based on this experience I find that moving from one GPU architecture to another is still a damn headache. And in both cases I stilll had to fight with Windows 7 to accept HD audio drivers for the GPU card. What a pity.

Meanwhile, moving from a GTX950 to a GTX1660 was easy as plug and play.