AMD announces end of 32-bit video driver support

Martin Brinkmann
Oct 26, 2018
Hardware
|
9

Japanese gaming website 4Gamer reports that AMD has discontinued support for 32-bit drivers for the company's graphics cards.

The company put 32-bit support for AMD drivers on Windows into legacy support. AMD customers who use 32-bit Windows operating systems may continue to use the latest 32-bit driver released by the company for its video cards but won't receive any more updates for it.

The only exception to the rule is that AMD may patch critical issues that are discovered in the near future. Whether that means critical security issues, stability issues, or issues with individual games is unclear at this point in time.

AMD Radeon Software support for Windows operating system has been moved to a legacy support mode - we are not planning to support x32-bit Windows operating systems in future driver releases. This change enables AMD to dedicate valuable engineering resources to Developing New Features and Enhancements for Graphics Products Based on the Latest X64-Bit Windows Based Operating Systems.

The last 32-bit version of the Radeon driver, Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 18.9.3, for Windows was released in September 2018. It included support for Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Forza Horizon and fixed two stability and usability issues.

The latest driver that AMD released is driver version 18.10.2; the driver is only available for 64-bit versions of Windows and not for 32-bit versions anymore.

amd driver 32-bit end

Nvidia, AMD's biggest rival in the video card niche, announced end of support for 32-bit drivers on Windows in 2017 but promised to produce security updates for 32-bit drivers when necessary until 2019.

A quick look at Steam's Hardware Survey for September 2018 shows that 32-bit operating systems make up below 2% of the entire Windows operating system population. Steam's survey does not provide a 100% image of the entire Windows population; gamers tend to invest more in hardware and software as games are mode demanding than most other applications that Windows users may run on their devices.

Now You: are you affected by the change? (via Neowin)

Summary
AMD announces end of 32-bit video driver support
Article Name
AMD announces end of 32-bit video driver support
Description
Japanese gaming website 4Gamer reports that AMD has discontinued support for 32-bit drivers for the company's graphics cards.
Author
Publisher
Ghacks Technology News
Logo
Advertisement

Tutorials & Tips


Previous Post: «
Next Post: «

Comments

  1. dark said on October 28, 2018 at 1:00 am
    Reply

    Would like to see Intel and AMD develop ARM_x64 (ARM architecture + usual x64 architecture but without x86) CPU’S sometime in near future replacing the current server, desktop and laptop x86_x64 architecture CPU’S.

  2. AnoreKnee Merce said on October 26, 2018 at 7:07 pm
    Reply

    To be fair, this is to be expected of AMD and Nvidia because mostly 64bit power-users and gamers would buy the costly dedicated Nvidia/AMD graphics cards.

  3. crambie said on October 26, 2018 at 6:21 pm
    Reply

    They’re hardly on their own in hating the mess that is Windows 10.

  4. Marsupilami said on October 26, 2018 at 5:02 pm
    Reply

    Not affected by this. But many people I know are affected by the ginormous lack of Windows 10 64-bit AMD drivers for laptops not older than 5-6 years. Stay away from AMD, they hate linux and they hate Windows 10. They hate everything.

    1. Ayy said on October 26, 2018 at 6:59 pm
      Reply

      that isn’t true at all anymore, the open source radeon drivers are actually on par and in some cases faster than the proprietary catalyst ones in regard to the older GPUs.

      1. Kevin said on October 26, 2018 at 8:27 pm
        Reply

        Yeah I used to be a huge AMD basher on Linux, but the performance has improved significantly now, to the point that I am going to switch to AMD next time I buy a video card.

  5. stefann said on October 26, 2018 at 2:08 pm
    Reply

    Yet another way to force people to buy new computers/hardware…..more money in these corrupt corporations !

    Where did that promised 128-bit Windows go by the way ?

    1. stefann said on October 26, 2018 at 2:09 pm
      Reply

      more money in these corrupt corporations *** pockets*** !

  6. Ayy said on October 26, 2018 at 2:04 pm
    Reply

    surprised its taken this long, x86_64 has been around since 2003~ , even if you had only 4GB of ram it would be roughly 20% faster simply because it has SSE2 baked into its standard compiler cflags.

Leave a Reply

Check the box to consent to your data being stored in line with the guidelines set out in our privacy policy

We love comments and welcome thoughtful and civilized discussion. Rudeness and personal attacks will not be tolerated. Please stay on-topic.
Please note that your comment may not appear immediately after you post it.