Nvidia is stopping driver support for 32-bit Operating Systems

The corporation says that version 390 of its GPU video driver will be the last to carry 32-bit platforms.

“Later driver release reports will not operate, nor install, on 32-bit operating systems,” an organization spokesperson said. “Driver enhancements, driver optimizations, and operating system feature in driver iterations after Release 390 will not be included back into Release 390 or earlier versions.”

Affected operating systems combine FreeBSD, Linux, Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1, and Windows 10.

The only limitation is security fixes. NVIDIA pledged to provide security fixes for 32-bit drivers until January 2019.

Along with the end of support notification for 32-bit operating systems, the company also declared the end of support for NVIDIA NVS products and NVIDIA Quad-buffered stereo features. The end of guide date is the same driver version 390. The current NVIDIA graphics driver report is 388.

The move is no wonder for industry insiders. Hardware vendors have essentially stopped producing 32-bit CPU designs and most of today’s CPUs are multi-core chipsets.

According to Steam statistics, 0.62% of all Windows-based Steam users are utilizing a one-CPU platform, a good sign of the number of 32-bit operating systems currently in use. This little market share is also one of the goals why NVIDIA’s EOL cable went unnoticed even in the organization official forum.