NVIDIA Dropping Mainstream GPU Driver Support For 32-bit Operating Systems This Month

Just before the end of 2017, NVIDIA dropped a bit of a bombshell: it'd be soon dropping support for 32-bit OSes with its GeForce GPU drivers. Admittedly, such a move was inevitable, as x64 OSes have been available to mainstream audiences for at least 13 years, with Windows XP Professional x64 Edition having released on April 25, 2005. 

The end is now nigh, and NVIDIA has laid out all of the details on its support website. First and foremost, NVIDIA plans to drop all 32-bit GPU driver support on the GeForce side effective this month. Security releases will continue to be issued until January 2019. What this means for those stuck on 32-bit OSes is that they will lose access to Game Ready updates, and any features that may be introduced to GeForce Experience in the future.

NVIDIA's Fermi-based GeForce GTX 580

If you're running a modern GPU on a 32-bit OS, we'd love to know why, and we can't imagine it's really all to popular these days, even on mobile platforms. Fortunately, those people do have a solution by reinstalling the 64-bit version of Windows. It's not the best solution, but it's at least a solution. 

In addition to this move, NVIDIA is also cutting support for Fermi-based GPUs. Finally, the saga of thr GPU that can fry an egg while sounding like a jet engine can come to a close. Affected GPUs include the infamous GTX 480, and also the GTX 580. Many lower-end notebook variants are affected as well, even if they carry seemingly recent naming (eg: GeForce 820M). You can find a full list of affected GPUs right here.

Either of these moves are unfortunate for customers who are affected by the changes, but in reality, this move should have been done a while ago for 32-bit OSes. It'd be nice to see Fermi supported for at least another generation as well, but, that's also understandable from the viewpoint that the GTX 580 was released over seven years ago. If you only buy X80 cards from NVIDIA, and soon upgraded from the GTX 580 to the GTX 1080, you'd be moving from 1.5 TFLOPS performance to 8.2 TFLOPS. Now that'd be an upgrade!