Is it necessary to uninstall old AMD/NVidia drivers before updating?  

Personally, I always unload old drivers before installing newer ones.

In most cases you can leave things to Windows 7, which now has a huge driver database, and Windows Updates to get what is best for your system.

Driver sweepers, finders, cleaners and the like can cause you problems and for that reason I never use them.

As ever, it's a personal choice so just go with whatever is best for you.

One thing you should bear in mind is that manufacturer's drivers may be configured differently to OEM system builders' drivers, which helps to explain why downloading and installing a manufacturer's latest driver can sometimes cause you problems.

No you don't need to uninstall first. AMD's installer has since shortly after the release (and Nvidia's more recently) when installing the new driver, has uninstalled the old before installing the new.

You can uninstall first if you wish, but it is basically an unnecessary step.

One thing you should bear in mind is that manufacturer's drivers may be configured differently to OEM system builders' drivers,

Not as far as desktop video card drivers go. At most what you get with the "manufacturer's" goes it the card maker's name showing up in the install windows. There is nothing any different in what they have over the reference AMD or Nvidia driver, and in fact a lot of the card maker's just link right back to AMD or Nvidia.

Laptop video drivers on the other hand can be different from the reference drivers, but only as far as how they work with whatever power scheme or the display that the laptop manufacturer may have used. The basic driver though is still the same as what is from the GPU manufacturer's.

boogieboy said:

stormy13 said:

No you don't need to uninstall first. AMD's installer has since shortly after the release (and Nvidia's more recently) when installing the new driver, has uninstalled the old before installing the new.

You can uninstall first if you wish, but it is basically an unnecessary step.

this sounds good to me :)

You may need to choose the Custom install when prompted.

No idea about that with the Nvidia installer but you don't with the AMD, it does it automatically. A custom install with the AMD driver package is just to allow you to pick and choose which parts of it get installed.

Also why in most cases there is no restart required when updating AMD drivers when done "over the top", as it is taken care of during the install; screen goes black, comes back at a low resolution, goes black again and then reverts to the default resolution (this is when the old is uninstalled before installing the new).

Entirely up to you. This is what gets installed with the Cat 12.1 Preview,



Personally I always do a custom and uncheck Hydravision as it is something I don't use or need. Really comes down to personal preference as to which parts to install.