Nvidia ends support for 32-bit operating system drivers
Nvidia announced yesterday plans to end Nvidia graphics driver support for 32-bit operating systems on the official Nvidia Support website.
Current Nvidia graphic cards drivers install on 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows, Linux and FreeBSD.
This changes after the release of the upcoming 390.x version of the GeForce Game Ready Driver for all supported operating systems. Nvidia won't release drivers for 32-bit operating systems anymore regardless of GPU that is used.
The company notes that drivers won't install or operate on 32-bit operating systems anymore, and that new features and improvements won't be backported to the GeForce Game Ready Driver 390 or earlier versions.
After Release 390, NVIDIA will no longer release drivers for 32-bit operating systems for any GPU architecture. Later driver release versions will not operate, nor install, on 32-bit operating systems. Driver enhancements, driver optimizations, and operating system features in driver versions after Release 390 will not be incorporated back into Release 390 or earlier versions.
This decision affects all supported versions of Microsoft Windows -- Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 -- as well as Linux and FreeBSD.
Nvidia will release critical security updates for drivers until January 2019 however.
Nvidia announced the end of support for NVS 310 and NVS 315 furthermore after the release of the GeForce Game Ready driver 390. These products won't be supported anymore after the release of the driver on all supported operating systems.
Nvidia will release security updates for the products until December 2019 (low to critical) and December 2012 (critical only)
Nvidia NVS graphics boards are designed for multi-display installations. Nvidia maintains two NVS products other than NVS 310 and 315 right now. NVS 510 comes with 2GB onboard memory and support for up to four displays. It supports 4K and DP 1.2.
NVS 810 is the top of the line product at this time. It comes with 4GB of memory, and eight display connectors.
Last but not least, Nvidia announced the end of support for select Nvidia quad-buffered Stereo features.
Beginning with release 396, Nvidia professional drivers for Windows won't support the following features:
- 3D DLP and Tridelity stereo display modes User interface and NVAPI access will be removed.
- NVAPI-based DirectX Stereo on Windows 10
- The following APIs will be deprecated: NvAPI_D3D1x_CreateSwapChain () and NvAPI_D3D9_CreateSwapChain ()
Developers are asked to use Microsoft native DXGI stereo APIs to continue using quad-buffered stereo on Windows.
Nvidia will release security fixes until 2021 though. Nvidia plans to release driver 390 in December 2017.
Closing Words
Nvidia ends graphics driver support for 32-bit operating systems. While graphics drivers will remain available for the foreseeable future on these systems, Nvidia won't release new features, improvements or bug fixes for 32-bit systems anymore after the release of driver 390.
A quick check on Steam reveals that most systems there are 64-bit systems already. All 32-bit systems combined make up less than 2% of the Steam population at this point in time.
How about geforce experience? Nvidia only provides the 32 bit version, no 64 bit one.
As GeForce Experience is just an application, this will (probably) remain working just fine on 32-bit architecture. To be clear: This last v390-driver will also just keep on functioning on 32b systems for as long as you need them to. There just won’t be any updates anymore. I think nVidia saw through their telemtry data that the 32b-audience was getting so small, it did not justify the effort of maintaining two separate driver branches anymore.
>How about geforce experience?
I think it would be better if Nvidia would stop providing that bloatware and spyware altogether, regardless of architecture (:
Geforce Experience is a great tool for those who don’t know the difference between AO and AA and all the info it sends home is actually used to make games run better on the infinite combinations of hardware out there.
My PC and Laptop are from 2010. Both Win7 64 bit. But drivers updates stopped long time time ago, because companies want to sell “the latest and greatest” devices with Win10. No thank you :-)
You will update….YOU WILL.
“Nvidia ends support for 32-bit operating system drivers and will instead focus 100% on delivering the same drivers to linux as they do for Windows 10”
Dear Santa..
Kind of sucks imo. 64-bit Windows does not have 16-bit support and sometimes a VM is not enough.
True, but then I doubt there are many people running 32bit OSs for 16 bit apps who also want the latest and greatest graphical features from Nvidia as well. Nvidia will still release security fixes for 32bit drivers for another couple of years at least. Most new games these days require 64bit versions of Windows as it is, and anyone bothered about the latest improvements and tweaks for modern games is almost certainly running a 64bit OS.
This is to be expected since it is mostly power-users running 64bit OS/software who have bought the high-end Nvidia graphics card, eg gamers.
… Don’t expect Intel to drop 32bit support for their lower-end Intel graphics card as soon as Nvidia or AMD.
In the future i think CPU’s will be ARM+x64 instead of x86+x64 they are currently.
Personally, I’m glad, as I have 2 x 32bit PC’s with nvidia graphics cards (XP and W7 Pro versions)
Don’t play games on these, solely for graphics and design apps legacy and newer that do what I need.
Nvidia bloatware drivers 300-400 Mb with injected telemetry no more hurrah with no more data surgery post install..
Good news IMHO :)
Oh well, thanks for that info. One of my PCs is 32 bit with on older Nvidia card on Win7. But it still plays most all my x265 video and many older games. Yet the CPU/BIOS can’t be patched for Meltdown and Spectre, so I guess I will retire it to off-line use in my garage, to replace my even older XP box, ha.