Upgrading Hardware (GPU), will it work?

Question

In a couple of days, I will change my old nVidia Quadro FX570 to nVidia GTX560Ti and I've been wondering if simply changing the GPU will work with my Ubuntu or it will break my system/create conflicts, so, do I have to remove drivers or something before the change?

PS: I believe that Quadro and GeForce gpu families use different driver packages, im not sure how it works on linux tho =)

Specs:

• Ubuntu 11.10 x64 with Gnome-Shell
• Drivers using at the moment: Proprietary nVidia Drivers @ "nVidia accelerated graphics driver (version current) [Recommended]"

Thanks in advance, Alexander.

Answer 1

By using the opensource nouveau driver that is installed by default, swapping graphics cards should not (usually) be an issue.

However, since you have installed the nvidia proprietary drivers, then you should deactivate the nvida driver from the Additional Hardware window followed by renaming any generated xorg.conf file:

sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup

Swap you graphics card, reinstall the nvidia-current driver (the recommended driver) from the Additional Hardware window.

Finally run nvidia-settings to customise your specific monitor(s) settings such as resolution etc.

Answer 2

In my case I went from an Nvidia 8600 to an Nvidia 9500 to the last one am using which is the Nvidia 440GT. I only had to turn off the computer and change the card. After booting up again (Using the propietary drivers but also tested with the open source driver and works perfect also) the only thing I had to do was change the resolution. Did not need to disable the drivers, uninstall them or nothing apart from changing the resolution.

What you need to care is to not change the video cable. For example, changing from a VGA cable connection to a DVI or HDMI will change some settings like resolutions available. Also changing the output, like from a CRT Monitor to a LED Monitor might REALLY change resolution and resolution formats.

If you are sticking with the same monitor and same cable then do not worry, you will not get any weird problems when changing the video card. It will just work.

NOTE - I just tested right now changing from the Nvidia 440GT to the 9550 just to make sure everything is OK. Am writing right now from the 9500 and somehow it knew the last resolution I was using for this model. So everything is 100% ok.