Over the last five years, we have seen plenty of device and game makers begin to drop support for 32-bit operating systems. Apple ended 32-bit support for iOS last year, and game developers have been dropping it from as far back as 2013. With that in mind, it shouldn't be too surprising that Nvidia is also dropping 32-bit support on GeForce graphics card drivers.
The GeForce line is Nvidia's gaming-focused brand. With many games no longer supporting 32-bit, it doesn't make much sense for gaming GPU drivers to keep supporting it. Nvidia warned us back in December that 32-bit GeForce driver support would be coming to an end, now we have a firm date, with support ending this month.
Starting this month, Nvidia's ‘Game Ready' driver upgrades will only be available for 64-bit operating systems. Critical security updates will continue to be provided for 32-bit OS users until January 2019. GeForce Experience updates will also only be available on 64-bit operating systems, though existing features like automatic game setting optimisation will continue to work on 32-bit systems.
This change affects Windows 7, 8/8.1 and Windows 10, in addition to Linux and FreeBSD.
KitGuru Says: The world has been moving on to 64-bit for a long time now, so this was just a matter of time. Are any of you still using a 32-bit OS? Will this change affect you at all?