Friday, March 14th 2014
NVIDIA Outlines Support Plans for its DirectX 10 Generation GPUs
With its next-generation "Maxwell" GPUs on the horizon, NVIDIA is preparing plans to gradually retire the GeForce 8 series, 9 series, and 200 series from its mainline driver support model. The GPUs make up NVIDIA's DirectX 10 generation, and include some iconic models, such as the 8800 GTX, the 8800 GT, the 9600 GT, and the GTX 260. The upcoming GeForce Release 340 driver will be the last to support these GPU series alongside its newer DirectX 11 generations, such as "Fermi," "Kepler," and "Maxwell." The driver that succeeds it, R343, will drop support for the older DirectX 10 generation.
With the R340 release, the DirectX 10 generation will be market "legacy." The lot will see continued support under R340 till April 2016. Whenever there's a glaring bug or security hole to address for the older GPUs, NVIDIA may ship out an R340 version (340.xx), but the GPUs will not get planned driver updates, unlike the "current" DirectX 11 generation. Support cycles are hence different from production cycle. A GeForce GTX 480, for example, may be "EOL" (end of life) in terms of its production cycle, but is still "current" in terms of its support cycle.
Source:
NVIDIA
With the R340 release, the DirectX 10 generation will be market "legacy." The lot will see continued support under R340 till April 2016. Whenever there's a glaring bug or security hole to address for the older GPUs, NVIDIA may ship out an R340 version (340.xx), but the GPUs will not get planned driver updates, unlike the "current" DirectX 11 generation. Support cycles are hence different from production cycle. A GeForce GTX 480, for example, may be "EOL" (end of life) in terms of its production cycle, but is still "current" in terms of its support cycle.
45 Comments on NVIDIA Outlines Support Plans for its DirectX 10 Generation GPUs
9400GT (parents work pc)
9600GT (my office pc)
mobile 8600GT (my old laptop)
all in service under Windows 7 still...
may the GTX 560 and my trusty GTX 650 be supported for the same long period :-P
Anyway, I have some old pc and laptop and I never updated the drivers because they are not for gaming and everything works just fine. So the "End of life" is not as dramatic as some may think.
Nvidia just stopped developing drivers for the hardware these companies made.
Maybe not all of you remember but, Nvidia (and AMD/ATI for that matter) was to blame for developing drivers for Windows Vista WDDM very late - as much as 1 year has passed after Vista was available (although beta version were available a bit earlier)!!!
I guess Nvidia has learned the lesson!
Good to see their support and commitment for their older hardware these days!
3Dfx had issues long before they folded. No 2D support, delays with product introduction (and non appearance of the Rampage chipset), lack of hardware based T&L, and a performance edge fast being eroded by the competition.
To cap it all off 3dfx then decided to cut off AIB's and market cards directly. Spending $141 million to buy STB and trying to compete with Taiwanese and Chinese manufacturing by building cards in Juarez, Mexico (!) Yeah, that'll work!
And it was all downhill from there:
February 2000 - Cuts 20% of workforce
Voodoo 4 and 5 still MIA
March 2000 - Decides to blow $186 million buying Gigapixel
August 2000- Nvidia sues 3Dfx for patent infringement. Tit-for-tat litigation countering 3Dfx's suing of Nvidia from 2 years previously regarding multi-texturing/mip-map dithering
November 2000 - Belatedly realizes that cutting out AIB'swasn't such a crash-hot idea...and news filters through that the Voodoo 5 won't be compatible with AGP 1.5V signalling.
December 2000 - Sells IP portfolio to Nvidiain the face of mounting losses, minimal sales, and lack of interest due to the lack of Pentium 4 chipset compatibility.
January 2003- The 3Dfx design team which transferred to Nvidia after the IP buyout produces its first Nvidia product, the NV30.....the FX 5800 "Dustbuster".
How will that work?
Thank you for the long support we love yah :-)
But Im glad they did as well. 8800GT will never be forgotten.
I remember myself using 3rd party drivers some Italian made available...