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Nvidia To Cease Producing New Drivers For 32-Bit Systems (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the cease-and-desist dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: While most people have probably made the switch by now, yet another reason to drop 32-bit operating systems and move to 64-bits is coming. Version 390 of Nvidia's graphics drivers, likely to arrive in January, will be the last to contain support for 32-bit versions of Windows (7, 8/8.1, and 10), Linux, and FreeBSD. There will be another year of security updates for 32-bit drivers, but all new features, performance enhancements, and support for new hardware will require the use of a 64-bit operating system and 64-bit drivers. Reasons to stick with 32-bit Windows are at this point few and far between. 64-bit Windows has superior security to 32-bit, and while it varies with workload, 64-bit applications can run somewhat faster than 32-bit counterparts; for workloads that won't fit within the constraints of 32-bit software, the difference is of course enormous. Generally, those who continue to use the 32-bit operating system tend to be subject to some kind of legacy constraint. 32-bit drivers won't work in 64-bit Windows, so obscure but mission critical hardware can extend the life of 32-bit systems.

13 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. Why 64bit is faster than 32bit? by JcMorin · · Score: 2

    I feel this statement is wrong 99% of the times except maybe when you need more than 32 bit addressing or doing computation using very large numbers. I think most application are faster on 32bit than 64bit.

    1. Re:Why 64bit is faster than 32bit? by darkain · · Score: 4, Interesting

      64bit instruction set is faster than 32bit instruction set in the fact that 1) x86 instructions are variable width to to begin with, so that doesn't effect performance. 2) the increased number of optimized instructions. 32bit software is either compiled to target the original 386 instruction set or an extended 686 instruction set. x64 includes countless more registers and instructions, meaning less swapping data to/from registers/ram, meaning actual useful instructions per cycle is higher.

    2. Re:Why 64bit is faster than 32bit? by Burdell · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It isn't a general 32-bit vs. 64-bit comparison, it is specifically that the x86_64 ISA is better than the i386 ISA in a major way, due to a larger register set. i386 has very few registers compared to other major architectures, which means higher memory access rates. Even with on-die caches, RAM access is slower than the CPU, so the more often code has to hit RAM, the slower it goes. x86_64 added more registers, so can do more with fewer RAM accesses, so it can do the same job faster.

    3. Re:Why 64bit is faster than 32bit? by KiloByte · · Score: 2

      64bit instruction set is faster than 32bit instruction set

      Except that 64 bit sucks big time on x86. The amd64 ABI fares better than i386 only because the latter has to keep a ridiculously inefficient calling convention and similar constraints for compat reasons. If you try a modern ABI such as x32, it wins over amd64 by something like 40% in code that benefits from this, or around 7% overall.

      64-bit does have other advantages, such as bigger address space, but speed is not one, at least not on x86.

      Also, pointer size (which is what matters here) doesn't preclude having instructions that handle more than word size. 8086 had 32-bit MUL/DIV, x32 ABI allows 64-bit integers, modern x86 processors have 128-bit floating point, etc.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  2. don;t buy nvidia by zlives · · Score: 2

    noted: if you need legacy support don't buy nvidia

    1. Re:don;t buy nvidia by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      noted: if you need legacy support don't buy nvidia

      If you need legacy support you're unlikely to throw a new GPU in a new motherboard and play the latest games anyway. This really is an incredible non-story.

  3. same key works for 32 and 64 just reinstall window by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    same key works for 32 and 64 just reinstall windows!

  4. And the hardware? by Zo0ok · · Score: 2

    When will the hardware stop supporting 32-bit (and 16-bit) modes?
    I talk about AMD and Intel CPUs.
    I mean, there could always be one model that does (support 16/32 natively). But most models could be pure 64 bit. It would be easier for everyone, wouldnt it?

    1. Re:And the hardware? by Burdell · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This is why Intel is talking about dropping legacy BIOS support and going with pure UEFI firmware. BIOS requires starting in 16-bit real mode, but UEFI can start in native protected mode.

    2. Re:And the hardware? by gweihir · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Not anytime soon. There is no reason for it. AMD64 is a patch on top of the Intel 32 bit instruction set, which itself is a patch on top of the Intel 16 bit instruction set. We are not talking about a well-designed and thought out instruction set like the 68000 had, we are talking about the mess Intel put into its CPUs. Hence there is no gain by having the hardware stop support the older modes.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    3. Re:And the hardware? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "native protected mode" should scare the *shit* out of us. IME/AMT et al prove that what is "protected" is their interests, not our computers memory.

    4. Re:And the hardware? by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 2

      Protected mode, in this case, means that virtual memory is activated, so your processes aren't all sharing a single memory space where everyone can see everyone else's data.

  5. Libre drivers by xororand · · Score: 2

    This is a prime example for the necessity of libre drivers.
    The good news is, libre drivers for Nvidia GPUs exist, and they continue to work on 32-bit Linux.
    AMD Radeon GPUs have much better open source compatibility, though.