SoylentNews

takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

AMD Ceases Graphics Driver Development for 32-bit Operating Systems [anandtech.com]

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 [amd.com] is the last release with 32-bit drivers.

The change doesn't come as a surprise. Earlier this year [anandtech.com], NVIDIA ceased driver development for 32-bit OSes [anandtech.com], 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 [anandtech.com]. 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) [soylentnews.org]
Nvidia Ends Mainstream Support for Fermi GPUs and 32-Bit Operating Systems [soylentnews.org]

Original Submission