Nvidia Ends Support For Kepler GPUs, Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1 On August 31

[Lightwreather]

Summary

Nvidia announced earlier today that it would stop supporting its Kepler-based graphics cards on older Windows operating systems with its next GeForce R470 driver.

Image credit: nVIDIA

Quotes

Quote

The GeForce R470 driver, scheduled for August 31, is the last driver to support Kepler graphics cards that debuted back in 2012. Owners of Kepler graphics cards will continue to receive critical security updates until September 2024. However, they will lose out on Game Ready driver upgrades, including performance uplifts, new features and/or bug fixes.

Additionally, the GeForce R470 driver also marks the end of support for Microsoft's Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 operating systems. The same conditions apply to users of the aforementioned operating systems. They are eligible to receive critical security updates through September 2024 but do not qualify for Game Ready driver updates.

Therefore, the future GeForce R495 driver, which goes public on October 4, will be the first GeForce driver to arrive without support for Kepler-powered products and pre-Windows 10 operating systems.

 

My thoughts

This news was to be expected, Kepler is already almost a decade old but this may have positive imapct as well. I could very well be wrong, but this might help with the inflation of GPU Prices since, in my thinking, Kepler based GPUs will now likely flood the market due to driver support being thrown out. As for Windows 7, this should've come a long time ago, seriously people just move to win10 or Linux. And support for windows 8/8.1, a little puzzling as it is still supported my microsoft (afaik), but understandable as well, veryfew people use it.

Sources

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-end-support-kepler-gpu-windows7-windows-8-august-31
https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5201
https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5202

[RejZoR]

Windows 8.x is being treated as that unwanted child. Microsoft kinda just canceled everything related to it and moved on. People clutch onto Windows 7 just because it was so popular back then, but I really see no reason to stick with it in 2021. Windows 10 is every bit as good if not better. Only thing I'd like to see back is Aero Glass coz I'm a sucker for visuals and the frosted glass everywhere looked gorgeous. Win10 has some transparency, but is not as pronounced as it was on Win7...

[SorryBella]

36 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Windows 10 is every bit as good if not better.

Frankly i dont agree, and this is coming from a long time windows user. W10 chugs hard without SSD, the amount of data logging needed without any explicit/transparent reason for it beyond the all encompassing, super vague "bug detection" and the push for microsoft to their mediocre and sparsely featured store  just leave off-taste to me.

[MultiGamerClub]

Considering the hell of windows 10 of the first year it got out.. I can understand people not wanting to move up.. But even now.. After so long? Damn i feel bad for people.

 

Unless they run of a 3100RPM disk.. Then its understandable.

[porina]

1 hour ago, J-from-Nucleon said:

I could very well be wrong, but this might help with the inflation of GPU Prices since, in my thinking, Kepler based GPUs will now likely flood the market due to driver support being thrown out.

Doubt it'll make any difference. I even had to look up which one Kepler was. The generation before Maxwell. Even if you had a high end card of the time, it will probably perform like a low end card of today. In a quick look a 780 Ti would fit in somewhere between a 970 and a 1060 6GB. Even the RX 480 would give it a good fight. They're just showing their age. Ok for low end gaming perhaps, but the market needs are very much on the higher end too.

 

A possible advantage of dropping Kepler is the driver package size might go down. It's getting rather silly big.

 

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

People clutch onto Windows 7 just because it was so popular back then, but I really see no reason to stick with it in 2021. Windows 10 is every bit as good if not better.

In my eyes while there have been some minor usability improvements to Win10 over the years since its launch, most of the complaints about it then are every much as applicable today, and they added a bunch more things to get in the way. The difference is people have got used to the pain points and found workarounds for many of them.

[RejZoR]

1 hour ago, SorryClaire said:

Frankly i dont agree, and this is coming from a long time windows user. W10 chugs hard without SSD, the amount of data logging needed without any explicit/transparent reason for it beyond the all encompassing, super vague "bug detection" and the push for microsoft to their mediocre and sparsely featured store  just leave off-taste to me.

I've been using Windows since Win98 as my actual own machine, but have been with Microsoft since Win3.1 and MS-DOS days. Windows 10 had it's bulk of nonsense in the beginning, but it shaped into most reliable OS. It's the only version that can actually run for months without any issues where all versions prior always had just random dumb problems where you had to reinstall entire OS clean every few months just to have it working. It was so bad I had an image backup to roll back over because I had to do it so regularly and whole install process took ages. Win10 installs clean in 15 minutes and half an hour extra to install all the apps and drivers back. And even that I usually do very very rarely now.

 

I wouldn't know how it runs on HDD because I haven't seen or used any system on HDD only in last 10 years. Had all my home systems on SSD's since Intel X25-M was a thing. I stuffed that thing into ACER Aspire One, replacing 160GB HDD with 80GB SSD. And never looked back. Even cheap laptops have SSD's now.

 

As for tracking, just use NextDNS and just select Windows tracking block list.

[da na]

1 hour ago, SorryClaire said:

Frankly i dont agree, and this is coming from a long time windows user. W10 chugs hard without SSD, the amount of data logging needed without any explicit/transparent reason for it beyond the all encompassing, super vague "bug detection" and the push for microsoft to their mediocre and sparsely featured store  just leave off-taste to me.

Agree. A few months ago I needed to diagnose a computer, didn't have a spare drive. Went to my school IT department and borrowed an old 5400rpm HDD from an old MacBook Pro. Windows 10 took a good 2 minutes after signing in for File Explorer to load and the computer to actually be usable.

[SorryBella]

15 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Windows 10 had it's bulk of nonsense in the beginning, but it shaped into its most reliable OS.

I have to say that its reliability is beyond compare. Windows Update infrastructure is so solid now that bug fixes are easily rolled to everyone who have automatic updates on for better or for worse (F in chat for those who hit data caps because windows pushes update before their billing cycle rolls over), and its really matured. But those few gripes are what make it so close to "perfect", but not "perfect".

[Neftex]

28 minutes ago, SorryClaire said:

Windows Update infrastructure is so solid now

personally i think windows update is one of the worst parts of the system, they push patches that break stuff way too often. every bigger patch fucks with the audio settings. no good options to select which updates you want to install (like only security updates...)

[RejZoR]

22 minutes ago, Neftex said:

personally i think windows update is one of the worst parts of the system, they push patches that break stuff way too often. every bigger patch fucks with the audio settings. no good options to select which updates you want to install (like only security updates...)

That's not an issue of Windows Update. Issue of Windows Update would be (used to be) updates that fail before starting, updates that get stuck forever, updates that take forever, 500 billion updates to install and each takes forever, all this stuff has been addressed pretty much. What gets delivered via Windows Update is another thing. You can't judge reliability of Windows Update by thinking it's bad because the updates it delivers cause problems.

 

Security updates are installed automatically, everything else is optional now and is delayed by default. I manually install updates the moment they are out and so far I didn't have any issues.

 

Drivers are separated for a while too.

[BigDamn]

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

Windows 10 had it's bulk of nonsense in the beginning, but it shaped into most reliable OS. It's the only version that can actually run for months without any issues where all versions prior always had just random dumb problems where you had to reinstall entire OS clean every few months just to have it working. It was so bad I had an image backup to roll back over because I had to do it so regularly and whole install process took ages. Win10 installs clean in 15 minutes and half an hour extra to install all the apps and drivers back. And even that I usually do very very rarely now.

Very rarely did I ever feel the need to do a clean install of Windows XP or Windows 7, even after multiple years of being installed. Windows 10 is the opposite. Games crashing due to Microsoft's bloatware interfering with it? Check. Windows Update breaks critical parts of the OS? Double check. Lack of program compatibility after being forced to upgrade? Check.

 

Windows 10 isn't reliable and it's not often I hear someone claim it is. There's a reason Microsoft is continuously losing market share in the server space, and reliability is right up towards the top of the list.

[BigDamn]

4 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

That's not an issue of Windows Update. Issue of Windows Update would be (used to be) updates that fail before starting, updates that get stuck forever, updates that take forever, 500 billion updates to install and each takes forever, all this stuff has been addressed pretty much.

False. Tell that to my machine that failed to install the 2nd most recent batch of updates, but is forced to retry on every single reboot/shutdown. Do some research, just because it doesn't happen to you doesn't mean it isn't common.

[RejZoR]

8 minutes ago, BigDamn said:

False. Tell that to my machine that failed to install the 2nd most recent batch of updates, but is forced to retry on every single reboot/shutdown. Do some research, just because it doesn't happen to you doesn't mean it isn't common.

It's not common just because it happened to you...

[Vishera]

1 minute ago, BigDamn said:

Windows 10 isn't reliable and it's not often I hear someone claim it is. There's a reason Microsoft is continuously losing market share in the server space, and reliability is right up towards the top of the list.

Because in the server space Linux is a strong and solid solution and has lots of software support.

Microsoft has to be competitive and offer a better product in order to take market share from Linux - The problem is that their product isn't good enough.

The whole strategy of Microsoft solely relies on it's dominance and power in the market,the product isn't good so people just go Linux.

[leadeater]

30 minutes ago, Vishera said:

Because in the server space Linux is a strong and solid solution and has lots of software support.

Microsoft has to be competitive and offer a better product in order to take market share from Linux - The problem is that their product isn't good enough.

The whole strategy of Microsoft solely relies on it's dominance and power in the market,the product isn't good so people just go Linux.

Windows Server is huge market, people mistake the Linux OS market data with the entire server market because that data looks almost exclusively at public facing servers hosting web servers and mail services which are basically all Linux yes.

 

However that doesn't account for that absolute huge presence of Windows Servers in nearly every business network from small to extremely large and for most part the largest contingent is Windows not Linux, ours for example being 70/30 split.

 

Microsoft has no interest in taking any of the market share Linux has for servers because in those deployments Windows simply does not make any sense and would never be considered in the first place. Hell Microsoft is actively pushing Linux themselves both with it's usage of it under the hood in Azure and also bringing their premium enterprise software products like Microsoft SQL Server to Linux. Microsoft would be responsible for certain migrations to Linux by their own actions and since they would be getting the license money for it still anyway it's not like they care.

 

Also Windows 2016 and 2019 don't even share the same NT Kernel as Window 10 and are barely similar operating systems today, nothing like Windows Server 2008 R2 vs Windows 7 or Windows Server 2012 R2 vs Windows 8.1 etc were.

[Arika]

Nvidia: "we're finally stopping support for kepler GPUs on windows after 9 years"

 

LTT forum: "THREAD MENTIONED WINDOWS?????? Time to shit on Windows!!!!"

 

 

14 replies, 0.5 addressing the actual topic. Seems about right...

[WhitetailAni]

Oh yeah. I forgot about that. Oh well, guess R470 is my last driver.

Does it really affect me negatively? Not really.

If anything, more Kepler cards being thrown on the used market is better since I like them and want a collection of at least one of each GTX card model.

[leadeater]

10 minutes ago, Arika S said:

Nvidia: "we're finally stopping support for kepler GPUs on windows after 9 years"

 

LTT forum: "THREAD MENTIONED WINDOWS?????? Time to shit on Windows!!!!"

I mean do we really care about 9 year old GPUs? lol

 

The Windows support thing is a bit more interesting though

[SorryBella]

7 minutes ago, leadeater said:

I mean do we really care about 9 year old GPUs? lol

"While Kepler is pretty much at its dead leg as we are moving to 6-8GB of vram being the norm, i do think it still belong on the market especially with how its basically bargain basement price is very lucrative for budget gamers."

 

-Claire-Sofie Gutmann, 2019 (H-474 of The Great GPU Stock Depression of 2020-2021)

[StDragon]

18 minutes ago, leadeater said:

I mean do we really care about 9 year old GPUs? lol

 

The Windows support thing is a bit more interesting though

If a GPU is 9 years old, I really don't expect Nvidia to keep developing features and enhancements for them. But at the bare-minimum I do expect, or rather should expect, HW compatibility with all editions of Windows 10. For example, there's a lot of old legacy Nvidia Quadros floating around in-use for multimonitor support.

 

Now I'm not suggesting indentured servitude by one vendor (Nvidia) to another (Microsoft). But if Nvidia stated their GPU is compatible with Windows 10, and Microsoft decides to stretch out Windows 10 to Oct 14, 2025 as reported prior, then shouldn't Nvidia be on the hook for ensuring at the least their driver supports WDDM in whatever changes Microsoft decides to implement in the last version of Windows 10 in 2025? 

 

It's a sticky situation. How does one vendor coordinate EOL with another? How do all vendors provide EOL status to their end-users? No vendor should have to face unreasonable expectations of support. And end-users (specifically IT Admins) ought not be caught in the middle off guard between vendor compatibility.

[SolarNova]

Hmm, think it might be a little to soon tbh.

 

Before my current 1080ti I had a 780 classified, that was ~1 year ago. So the top end 700 series cards are still capable 1080p gaming cards. I think driver compatibility should be maintained.

Still, old display drivers dont immediately mean new games wont work.

 

As for W7, many of the issues of W10 present at launch are still present. Those who have stuck with W7 are unlikely to jump ship just because Nvidia stops offering driver support. They will stick with W7 till enough programs/games stop running, which at this time isnt a huge list.

 

My issue with W10 is its over-bloated nature, reduced user control, and mass telemetry/data gathering. Though, i think by the time I upgrade to my GPU next .. probably next generation should prices return to the normal (10 series and back)  by then, ill move on from W7 to something like W10 LTSC.

[leadeater]

25 minutes ago, StDragon said:

It's a sticky situation. How does one vendor coordinate EOL with another? How do all vendors provide EOL status to their end-users? No vendor should have to face unreasonable expectations of support. And end-users (specifically IT Admins) ought not be caught in the middle off guard between vendor compatibility.

I don't think 9 year old tech hardware can in any possible way be described as being caught off guard if the company announces EOL status. At some point no matter how new something is an EOL announcement will come.

 

25 minutes ago, StDragon said:

Now I'm not suggesting indentured servitude by one vendor (Nvidia) to another (Microsoft). But if Nvidia stated their GPU is compatible with Windows 10, and Microsoft decides to stretch out Windows 10 to Oct 14, 2025 as reported prior, then shouldn't Nvidia be on the hook for ensuring at the least their driver supports WDDM in whatever changes Microsoft decides to implement in the last version of Windows 10 in 2025? 

No, just because a vendor publishes that a product is supported under particular operating systems does not mean that they are obligated in any way to continue support for a product for the life of that operating system. That's not how product support models work for their product. At any point a vendor can announce an OEL date of a product and that has literally nothing to do with supported operating systems or how long those operating systems are supported for.

 

If a company wants to cut support for a product then they can cut it, other vendors supported whatever has no part to play in that at all, even if that vendor announces support ending for their thing other vendors can still offer official support of their product on that other vendors thing. Support isn't a strict one to one relationship in length of time or support status.

[WolframaticAlpha]

5 hours ago, RejZoR said:

Windows 10 is every bit as good if not better.

Telemetry and spyware

Updaaaaateeeeessssss

 

 

You might say both can be disabled, but it requires registry hax. Some registry hax that worked earlier can now brick your system. But the main reason is that for many people, windows 10 is very heavy. People have stopped buying new computers, as their phones are their computers. They use their pc's only when they need to do something that can't be done on a smartphone (well), like creating a powerpoint presentation. Also a lot of consumers are perfectly content with their adobe cs5. Software innovation from the massive software companies(adobe, ms, corel etc) has slowed down significantly, with the PC now becoming a device for serious work or gaming.

[WolframaticAlpha]

3 hours ago, RejZoR said:

It's the only version that can actually run for months without any issues where all versions prior always had just random dumb problems where you had to reinstall entire OS clean every few months just to have it working. It was so bad I had an image backup to roll back over because I had to do it so regularly and whole install process took ages. Win10 installs clean in 15 minutes and half an hour extra to install all the apps and drivers back. And even that I usually do very very rarely now.

I have not had a single blue screen with windows 7 ever. My new laptop came with windows. I have had 4-5 blue screens in a timespan of 6 months. Finally decided I had enough and installed linux.. And whenever I get a blue screen, I get a heart attack. It is not as reliable as 7, it is not as good as 7, and it sux ass at a lot of things(especially the design) . Now  you have stuff that looks like it was designed in the 98 days, xp days, vista/7 days and, metro etc. Even microsoft's metro UI is divided into win8 metro and fluence. 10 is just too off putting.

 

 

If microsoft had made windows 7 the last version of windows ever, I wouldn't have started using linux. But they just had to f*ck it up with 10

[RejZoR]

5 minutes ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

Telemetry and spyware

Updaaaaateeeeessssss

 

 

You might say both can be disabled, but it requires registry hax. Some registry hax that worked earlier can now brick your system. But the main reason is that for many people, windows 10 is very heavy. People have stopped buying new computers, as their phones are their computers. They use their pc's only when they need to do something that can't be done on a smartphone (well), like creating a powerpoint presentation. Also a lot of consumers are perfectly content with their adobe cs5. Software innovation from the massive software companies(adobe, ms, corel etc) has slowed down significantly, with the PC now becoming a device for serious work or gaming.

Windows 10 is not heavy. I'm using it on frigging ASUS Transformer with Atom Z8300 series quad core, 2GB RAM and 64GB eMMC SSD and it's perfectly usable for casual use. It's only really slow because of crap eMMC storage. Laptops with regular quad core of any sort, 4GB RAM and any kind of SSD, even DRAM-less if it's not absolute junk will run flawlessly.

 

And while I'm privacy concerned, people don't seem to differentiate telemetry from spyware and data hoarding. Google's data mining is pretty much purely for making money which makes it much more evil than actual telemetry used by Microsoft. Sure, they might collect things you don't want them to, but Windows is a very big and complex OS, it'll eventually happen one way or the other. But they can have a huge insight on what's happening with systems using telemetry. I mean, if large number of systems install an update and then suddenly start to spew bunch of errors, Microsoft can react to the situation proactively. Instead of waiting for word to come around from tech support, forums to MVP's and news sites to tip them off about problems. That's real telemetry. Reason they made it mandatory is because they sacked 3/4 of their QA department. Only way to compensate for that is to rely heavily on telemetry.

 

If you still don't like it, there are means to disable it. Either by hacks or simply using DNS blocking like I'm using.