14 DAY TRIAL // NVIDIA has recently announced that it’s ending support for 32-bit versions of the supported operating systems, with build 390 to be the last release for these platforms.
At this point, 32-bit operating systems that are still getting GeForce Game Ready Driver updates are Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Linux, and FreeBSD.
NVIDIA said in an announcement that despite bug fixes and new features no longer being released for this platform, security patches will continue to be shipped until January 2019.
“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,” the company explained.
NVS graphic broads retired
In addition, NVIDIA also pulled support for NVS 310 and NVS 315 graphic boards, with security fixes to be shipped until 2019 for vulnerabilities flagged with a low to critical priority level and until December 2021 for critical ones.
“Later driver release versions will not operate, nor install, on systems using the above products. 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,” NVIDIA said.
NVIDIA giving up on support for 32-bit operating systems shouldn’t be the end of the world since the gaming industry is dominated by 64-bit computers, but even so, customers impacted by this decision should already start planning an upgrade to benefit from the latest improvements.
On the good side, security updates will continue to be provided for two more years, so if you don’t mind missing out on new features, at least your system is fully protected and all vulnerabilities are getting patched.