Nvidia Will No Longer Release Driver Updates for 32-Bit Systems Next Year
By 2018, graphics processor maker Nvidia will join other technology companies that will no longer support 32-bit operating systems.
Computers that have Nvidia products installed normally receive free driver updates on a regular basis or whenever it is needed. However, in a recent announcement, the company confirmed that computers running on a 32-bit OS will stop experiencing those perks by 2018.
In a statement issued a few days before Christmas, Nvidia said: "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."
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"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," the technology company added.
The said major change will affect the 32-bit OS versions of Windows 7, Windows 8 and 8.1, Windows 10, Linux, and FreeBSD.
On the other hand, Nvidia promised that they still plan to release necessary "critical driver security fixes" for drivers on 32-bit machines but only until January 2019.
As mentioned earlier, Nvidia is not the only technology firm dropping support for 32-bit machines. It can be recalled that Apple completely ditched the said system type upon the release of iOS 11. This affected mobile apps that developers failed to update to support 64-bit chips and caused the said programs to no longer work on a device running on an iOS 11 system.
These changes can also be attributed to the fact that many content developers, such as those who create video games, have been releasing products that call for a 64-bit system in order to work.
Meanwhile, chipmaker Intel will also reportedly drop its support for 32-bit systems in the coming years as the company plans to ditch the BIOS for their Unified Extensible Firmware Interface. According to Anandtech, the plan is to implement the change by 2020, which means 32-bit computers will no longer receive updates sometime in the said year.
