(Nvidia dropping Windows < 10 Support) What does driver update really add?

Gaming
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So Nvidia is dropping support for windows 7, 8, and 8.1. and we have until September before no more driver are issued.

Context

I am a Linux user, my main Computer run Fedora, and i have a second, Micro ITX computer, for gaming and software that don’t work at all on Linux (i never had anything work with wine :frowning: )

A couple years ago, (5 ?) i was running my school laptop under windows 10.
It is what pushed me out of the windows ecosystem completely and every 3-6 month i get a new’s headline reminding me to never go back.

So that secondary computer run windows 8.1 pro, it work very well, i have a start menu without ads, and a single control panel… I will probably grab some LTS patch for it when it leave general support.

My long term plan is Looking glass, but for now i can’t get a hand on a 6800XT for the linux side of it so i will wait.

What does those driver bring anyway ?
Will it be ok to stay 1-2Y with the old driver as long as the the hardware stay in that driver ?
Does “game ready” patch do a LOT ?

I never had to be unsupported before, but since i also have some 3d vision 2 hardware, might as well go way back …

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Windows 10 has around 80% market share at the moment. 8 and 8.1 are in extended support, and 7 is out of support, so imo Nvidia shouldn’t really be encouraging using operating systems with potential flaws which will never be fixed.

There’s some software that’ll only run on older Windows versions, and Nvidia aren’t going to suddenly stop hosting older driver versions. You can still go on their site and download drivers for Windows 95 era devices.

Good to see you’re looking at setting up looking glass. Running these things in VMs is definitely a better idea if it’s online.

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