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AMD Ceases Graphics Driver Development for 32-bit Operating Systems
With the recent October releases of Adrenalin Edition, AMD has finally discontinued support for 32-bit operating systems. The latest 32-bit packages can still be manually downloaded through older driver release notes, of which Adrenalin Edition 18.9.3 is the last release with 32-bit drivers.
The change doesn't come as a surprise. Earlier this year, NVIDIA ceased driver development for 32-bit OSes, and early last year AMD dropped graphics driver support for 32-bit Windows 8.1. Pre-GCN hardware was moved to legacy status back in 2015. Ultimately, the idea is to concentrate development and engineering resources, particularly if those resources are limited. Over the past few years, AMD has put in a renewed effort in graphics driver development, retiring Catalyst for "Radeon Software" and embarking on major annual updates, both for gaming and professional products. In that sense, prolonging 32-bit support diffuses focus for very specific edge cases for little benefit, and that goes for both NVIDIA and AMD.
Previously: Nvidia to Stop Writing Drivers for 32-Bit Systems (Eventually)
Nvidia Ends Mainstream Support for Fermi GPUs and 32-Bit Operating Systems
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday October 30 2018, @03:07AM (1 child)
I have a Radeon HD 5450 (the lowest and cheapest of the 5000 series) in a 64bit computer. AMD announced some 5 years ago that they would not be updating the drivers for the 5000 series any more, and so there was no point downloading and updating to their latest drivers.
But, as is typical, they didn't handle the sunset too well. Instead of making sure the sunset operations work correctly, they allowed their Windows driver update software to get into an endless loop. It upgrades, then next boot downgrades, then the boot after that upgrades again. Or, you can tell it not to upgrade, but somehow you can't tell it not to nag you about upgrades, so you have to tell it not to upgrade every time you boot.
I suppose it's understandable that fixing such issues is low on their list of priorities. And maybe the harassment will help nudge the end user into upgrading. That's commercial software for you :p.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30 2018, @03:12AM
That's the problem with proprietary software; it ain't your property.