[SOLVED]Changing from nvidea to AMD

mt_arch_user · 2025-05-03 01:10:49

I am currently running with a Nvidia GTX 980 and frankly, having basically no problems although my system is using X11 instead of Wayland, which I understand in the near future I should be using.

Looking around in my stash, I found a brand new Sapphire Vapor -X R9 290 card and was thinking perhaps I should change to it.

I am usually in the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" camp, but if it's not a big issue, I'd like to retire the Nvidia card.
So, before I mess my system up completely, can I get a quick rundown of what I'd need to do to change the card? And to enable Wayland?
I think this would be easier and quicker than messing the whole system up and having to get on here and do a step by step repair.

Bart

Last edited by mt_arch_user (2025-05-03 18:28:41)

BS86 · 2025-05-03 10:00:21

remove the nvidia drivers from your system
make sure you have no config in /etc/X11/ or /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ that force enables the nvidia driver (will cause a black screen boot if the config is still there with the driver removed)

Then simply swap the cards.

What you need to install to switch to wayland depends on your DE. For KDE Plasma it should be sufficient to switch to it at the login screen since Plasma 6 came out.

Succulent of your garden · 2025-05-03 12:32:19

You shouldn't have any problems running the card if there is a driver for it, you can see this link for more information: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg#AMD

And also this link: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/AMDGPU

Since your card is GCN 2 architecture, there are no proprietary drivers, and i'm not sure when AMD went open source, so maybe you should like to see the performance of the drivers, if it was release with proprietary drivers, if that card was already using open source drivers, probably it's fine.

I'm currently having a dual stack gpu with a old nvidia card and a amd gpu. zero problems, but i'm running Xorg. Many here don't believe that Wayland is the "future" and you must change to it in someday. I would recommend to stay in Xorg for stability and maintenance reasons, in wayland you will experience some bugs and sometimes people are not able to launch certain applications. In some parts of wayland there are no consensus of how some stuff should work, which in Xorg doesn't exists. So for that reasons I recommend that if you are comfy in Xorg, just stay with it, but if you want to change to wayland for some reason, do a research first to know if you are not going to have any issues with programs.

Last edited by Succulent of your garden (2025-05-03 12:35:58)

BS86 · 2025-05-03 13:53:03

All AMD cards of the last 15-20 years run great on the free driver. They killed the proprietary one in 2015 and it was already bad for years at that point.
The 290 is supported by both free drivers, amdgpu as well as the very old radeon driver and even the later one still sees work and improvements in mesa.

Last edited by BS86 (2025-05-03 14:01:20)

cryptearth · 2025-05-03 14:28:52

as both cards are equivalent there's not much to change them
in fact the amd is a bit worse here:
- only DX11
- requires additional kernel-parameter, otherwise defaults to old radeon driver
- as its after EoL can have issues with current drivers, maybe need older version
tldr: not much worth changing it aside from it doesn't require an additional proprietary driver but works with in-tree one

mt_arch_user · 2025-05-03 18:30:14

Big thanks to all who took the time to respond to my question.
I researched the suggested links and have come to the solution I wanted.

Bart

Succulent of your garden · 2025-05-03 20:29:52

Glad the links helped

Arch Linux

#1 2025-05-03 01:10:49

[SOLVED]Changing from nvidea to AMD

#2 2025-05-03 10:00:21

Re: [SOLVED]Changing from nvidea to AMD

#3 2025-05-03 12:32:19

Re: [SOLVED]Changing from nvidea to AMD

#4 2025-05-03 13:53:03

Re: [SOLVED]Changing from nvidea to AMD

#5 2025-05-03 14:28:52

Re: [SOLVED]Changing from nvidea to AMD

#6 2025-05-03 18:30:14

Re: [SOLVED]Changing from nvidea to AMD

#7 2025-05-03 20:29:52

Re: [SOLVED]Changing from nvidea to AMD

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