Does the nVIDIA clean install really work?

Does choosing clean install really ensure that the old drivers and their remnants are removed to install the new driver without any conflicts or performance issues or must one still use a driver cleaner like in the old days?

 

It's not as "clean" as using DDU or Driver Sweeper/Fusion, but you shouldn't need to use those unless you have serious issues and the normal installation method doesn't fix them or you're switching GPU brands. Some people swear by using them every single time you update your driver; I find that to be an unnecessary hassle. It was many, many years ago that I used to prescribe to that way of thinking. But nowadays, the AMD and Nvidia installers do a pretty good job of removing most remnants of the old driver prior to installing the new one, and anything left over probably affects your OCD more than it affects performance or stability.

Personally, I check clean install every time just to err on the side of caution, but I used to just run the installer without selecting clean install and never had any problems with that either.

 

NVIDIA doesn't have as many issue with corruption as AMD when it comes to updating drivers. I agree with Brother octiceps. It normally does what it should if you get a buggered up driver. Using DDU is more thorough, but may be overkill for most situations. I only check that box for an "undo" of something I did not like. If it is really messed up, then I will use DDU or Driver Fusion. When upgrading to a newer driver, I never use it.

Bear in mind this will delete any customizations you have made using NVIDIA Inspector or by manually editing the SLI bits using a text file. If you have taken time to do that for some of your games and benchmarks, you won't want to lose all of your hard work. You can use the Geforce 3D Profile Manager to back up and restore those custom tweaks when using that approach or DDU.

 

latest update a few days ago in safe mode still found 18 obsolete registry entries with driver sweeper and once loaded newest driver cc registry cleaner found another 42 obsolete nvidia crap so there will always be odds and sods left in the registry that is not needed.