[SOLVED] Should I reinstall all games on my ssd and hdd after motherboard cpu upgrade?

[wharris1985]

I just purchased a new cpu from 7th gen to 9th gen. So along with that I will be installing a new motherboard. Ive had friends who have "upgraded " and found out they have games constantly crash and can't figure out why. After reading some of the forums on here it sounds like drivers being moved over to the new windows install can cause issues. So the question i have is when i do this install should i just reformat all my ssds and hard drives and start from scratch?

Im really looking for a clear solid answer on the best possible outcome for this. Thank you!

 

[theoneandonlyfoohyking]

Just copy all your game files onto somewhere else (like another internal hard drive) with nothing related to Windows and plug that drive in. I moved my games & documents drive from my old pc into my current one with no issues at all

 

[wharris1985]

Just copy all your game files onto somewhere else (like another internal hard drive) with nothing related to Windows and plug that drive in. I moved my games & documents drive from my old pc into my current one with no issues at all

Right now all my games are on ssds. Will this be okay if u keep them there and connect them back to the motherboard?

 

[theoneandonlyfoohyking]

Right now all my games are on ssds. Will this be okay if u keep them there and connect them back to the motherboard?

If it’s just games on the SSD, you should be fine

 

[drea.drechsler]

I just purchased a new cpu from 7th gen to 9th gen. So along with that I will be installing a new motherboard. Ive had friends who have "upgraded " and found out they have games constantly crash and can't figure out why....

Are the games installed through Steam, Origin, UPlay, etc, launchers? You can save those games then point the launcher to the game files and have it verify the files are correct for the new installation. Do this after you've re-installed Windows and installed the new motherboard, GPU, network, sound card etc. drivers so the launcher knows the current system configuration to make whatever changes may be needed. It still takes a bit of time but a lot less than a full download of the games to get going again.

This is made ever so much easier if all your games are installed on a Games drive separate from the Windows System drive. When you clean-install Windows, just do it with the Games drive completely disconnected so you can be confident you won't accidentally delete them all.

I suspect people who don't do a clean install of Windows after such an upgrade experience the most problems with unexplained crashes though.

 

[wharris1985]

If it’s just games on the SSD, you should be fine

Thanks for all of your input so far. I have a question. Currently I have 2 ssd's. The first one I bought I installed windows along with my first games. You mentioned copying games onto a separate SSD. If I buy an additional SSD, can I move the games onto the new SSD and reformat the SSD with windows on it to reinstall windows? If so, could you explain how to do this? Sorry, I've never had to do this.

 

[wharris1985]

Are the games installed through Steam, Origin, UPlay, etc, launchers? You can save those games then point the launcher to the game files and have it verify the files are correct for the new installation. Do this after you've re-installed Windows and installed the new motherboard, GPU, network, sound card etc. drivers so the launcher knows the current system configuration to make whatever changes may be needed. It still takes a bit of time but a lot less than a full download of the games to get going again.

This is made ever so much easier if all your games are installed on a Games drive separate from the Windows System drive. When you clean-install Windows, just do it with the Games drive completely disconnected so you can be confident you won't accidentally delete them all.

I suspect people who don't do a clean install of Windows after such an upgrade experience the most problems with unexplained crashes though.

Can I move games off of my SSD with Windows on there to a new SSD and reinstall windows on the old ssd with windows on there? If so how do I move the game files? I'm just trying to find the best and most time effective way to go about this. Thank you!

 

[drea.drechsler]

Can I move games off of my SSD with Windows on there to a new SSD and reinstall windows on the old ssd with windows on there? If so how do I move the game files? I'm just trying to find the best and most time effective way to go about this. Thank you!

Generally yes, but the method will depend on the launcher. What games/launchers do you use? For my Steam games I just copied them to the new drive/folder, then installed Steam and used that folder as the Games Installation folder. When I installed the game it just verified files a lot faster than doing a complete download.

How many games do you have?