SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the graphic-drivers-are-logo-emblazoned-golf-clubs dept.
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 takyon on Tuesday October 30 2018, @09:51PM
I agree. There's nothing technically stopping a 100 gigabyte game from being fun, since you can fit all the code you want in there before moving on to the evul graphics (cue the angry gameplay vs. graphics anon). But a 4 KB/KiB game is going to be limited by the file size. It could be fun, and it might do a lot within its limits, but it won't represent the full range of what could be possible with more code.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]