Arch Linux

Bednar

Member

Registered: 2015-09-19

Posts: 72

upgrading graphics card Nvidia --> AMD (drivers)

Hi all,

I will be upgrading my GTX 970 running on nvidia proprietary driver to a vega 56 card. I am trying to figure out how to sort the driver situation. Namely, before installing the new card, should I remove any traces of nvidia specific packages:

pacman -Qs nvidia 

                                  
local/lib32-libvdpau 1.2-1
    Nvidia VDPAU library
local/lib32-nvidia-utils 418.56-1
    NVIDIA drivers utilities (32-bit)
local/lib32-opencl-nvidia-340xx 340.107-3
    OpenCL implemention for NVIDIA (32-bit)
local/libvdpau 1.2-1
    Nvidia VDPAU library
local/libxnvctrl 418.56-1
    NVIDIA NV-CONTROL X extension
local/nvidia 418.56-1
    NVIDIA drivers for linux
local/nvidia-settings 418.56-1
    Tool for configuring the NVIDIA graphics driver
local/nvidia-utils 418.56-1
    NVIDIA drivers utilities 

and then re-install mesa:

pacman -Qs mesa   

local/glu 9.0.0-5
    Mesa OpenGL Utility library
local/lib32-glu 9.0.0-4
    Mesa OpenGL utility library (32 bits)
local/lib32-mesa 19.0.0-1
    An open-source implementation of the OpenGL specification (32-bit)
local/mesa 19.0.0-1
    An open-source implementation of the OpenGL specification

Then install the new card?

Anything else I should be aware of?

Thanks,

B.

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 17,378

Re: upgrading graphics card Nvidia --> AMD (drivers)

Why would you need to reinstall mesa?

Ropid

Member

Registered: 2015-03-09

Posts: 1,069

Re: upgrading graphics card Nvidia --> AMD (drivers)

In the "installation" section of the "AMDGPU" ArchWiki article, there's a bunch of packages listed that you need besides "mesa":

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AMDGPU

You can install all of them right now.

You don't have to remove any of the packages you need for your Nvidia card. You can leave them all installed. They don't clash with what you need for AMD or Intel.

Personally, when I switched from an Nvidia GTX 680 to an AMD RTX 480, I did not remove the nvidia stuff. I only removed those packages after I had booted with the AMD card and checked that everything about it worked right.