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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 tibman on Wednesday October 31 2018, @03:01AM
Don't insult people when you have no idea what you're talking about. Compilers turn non-cpu specific code into a cpu specific executable. Programmers write in a generic language that is abstracted away from hardware targets. You can compile the same C program for 8bit Atmel microcontrollers, or 32bit ARM cpus, or 64bit x86-64.
A company probably won't run that hardware, legacy OS, and test all the executables when it affects like 0.1% of the customer base. 64bit x86 CPUs have been available for ~15 years. Linux support was there for a long time. Windows went grudgingly but it's there now. If you're using 10 year old hardware, then you should really be glad they supported it for so long. Surely that old hardware has damn good drivers by now?
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