Help ! Scared to buy an ATI - already have a Nvidia card installed

I need some advice on video cards !!
I have a geforce 4 ti4200 in my computer already. I want to buy an ATI Sapphire 9500 pro , and replace my geforce 4 ti4200 . ( I'm putting the geforce 4 in my comp at work ) .
I've heard horror stories about switching from Nvidia to ATI . I have windows XP and an athlon 1600 with an MSI mobo.

Is it worth the risk switching to ATI , possibly messing up my drivers ...or should I just buy another geforce 4 ti4200 ?

Whats the best ( and easiest ) way to get rid of my old Nvidia drivers , including all the registry crap..?

thanks for any advice, before I buy....

The safest way is to format and reinstall windows,but a program called "Detonator destoyer" is suppose to work well for getting rid of all traces of your old Nvidia drives.:)

>>I have a geforce 4 ti4200 in my computer already. I want to buy an ATI Sapphire 9500 pro , and replace my geforce 4 ti4200 . ( I'm putting the geforce 4 in my comp at work ).

That's not much of an upgrade albeit you'll run better AA & AF. I'd save up some more while waiting for the 9800 Pro to be announced so the 9700 Pro drops in price, or get the 9700 Pro now.

>>I've heard horror stories about switching from Nvidia to ATI . I have windows XP and an athlon 1600 with an MSI mobo.

It's not hard its just that you MUST do things in the right order and make sure to get rid of the geforce drivers and reg. entries. Here's a link with the correct order and steps including some freeware to be sure reg. entries are cleaned up: http://www.amdforums.com/showthread....89#post1534389

Thanks for advice OS-wiz
it seems pretty straightforward...
although if you dont think there'll be much of an improvement in getting a Radeon 9500 pro, maybe I'll just buy another geforce 4 ...it's about 20 $ cheaper !

Quote:

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Originally posted by dimmy32
Thanks for advice OS-wiz
it seems pretty straightforward...
although if you dont think there'll be much of an improvement in getting a Radeon 9500 pro, maybe I'll just buy another geforce 4 ...it's about 20 $ cheaper !

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$20! LOL Don't worry about it.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic...n_9500-09.html

The card's a big leap forward.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic...s/image072.gif

Det Destroyer won't work on 2K/XP...at leas the last time I saw it, it was only for 9x/ME.

If you are running 2K/XP, just run SYSPREP and don't worry about reinstalling Windows.

wait a sec, un4 what's sysprep? Gotta know these because my friend's letting me test drive a Herc 3D prophet 8700 pro... but i've also got a ti4200 installed..

flip

i just got through doing that process. I had a msi 4200 and replaced it with a 9500 pro. All I did was uninstall the detonator drivers from add/remove programs. Then i made sure i downloaded the newest drivers and i was good to go! Don't use the drivers on the disk, because when i did my 9500 pro was not faster than my 4200! Only when i upgraded did i see a big difference!!!

Quote:

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Originally posted by flipachu
wait a sec, un4 what's sysprep? Gotta know these because my friend's letting me test drive a Herc 3D prophet 8700 pro... but i've also got a ti4200 installed..

flip

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It's a utility that was primarily designed to help admins build migration disks to roll out Windows in large scale environments. However, for situations like this it works quite well because it eliminates all registry entries for all hardware, then forces Windows into a full PnP detect on the next boot.

1. Run sysprep.
2. Shut down computer and install new hardware.
3. Boot computer and let Windows PnP your hardware. Drivers for all of the previously installed stuff should be reinstalled and you need only install the drivers of the new hardware you just installed.

I always use reference drivers from Nvidia's website - I never use drivers that come with the card.

As far as the review goes , I dont play games at much higher res than 1280 X 768, so in this case, the ti4200, will pretty much keep up with the 9500 pro . I use mild AA ( 2X ) .

Still not sure about which card to buy....

Quote:

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Originally posted by dimmy32
I always use reference drivers from Nvidia's website - I never use drivers that come with the card.

As far as the review goes , I dont play games at much higher res than 1280 X 768, so in this case, the ti4200, will pretty much keep up with the 9500 pro . I use mild AA ( 2X ) .

Still not sure about which card to buy....

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At those settings, the Ti4200 can't even come close to the R9500Pro. The R9500Pro has far better image quality and DX9 support and excellent drivers. Why even consider the Ti4200 at this point?

Sysprep should work but using "Regcleaner" is much easier. Simply blow away any registry entries related to nVidia after uninstalling their drivers.

" I use mild AA ( 2X ) . "


Why not get a card the handles 8x AA if it only costs a bit more.

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Originally posted by Paladyr
Sysprep should work but using "Regcleaner" is much easier. Simply blow away any registry entries related to nVidia after uninstalling their drivers.

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Assuming you can still find it, that is.

http://www.vtoy.fi/jv16/shtml/regcleaner.shtml

Umm Regcleaner doesnt completely wipe away the registry of old hardware. The only true way would be to format. Another way would be to search through your registry and clean it out manually. But I dont recommend that for the average joe.

You can still find regcleaner but I dont recommend it for XP. It wasnt designed for XP. Last time I checked it only supported Windows 9x and ME. Microsoft even stop recommending that software and discontinued it from there site.

Quote:

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Originally posted by crashed13
The safest way is to format and reinstall windows,but a program called "Detonator destoyer" is suppose to work well for getting rid of all traces of your old Nvidia drives.:)

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That's a bit like suggesting suicide to cure a cold.

Use a good registry cleaner and fix the issue, there is almost never a need to reformat.