Oh sure, we've all been running 64-bit executables on 64-bit operating systems made for 64-bit processors for years now... but only now can
we call it for 32-bit gaming. Why? Because Steam has announced that it
is dropping support for 32-bit operating systems.*
(And yes, I'm being a bit tongue-in-cheek here. Still, the
announcement is genuine, and where goes Valve, so goes the
rest of the PC gaming industry usually, so it's not a
completely inaccurate take on the issue)
I, of course, get grumpy about this sort of thing, because it does cut
off access to my games on a number of older computers. I understand
their logic --most gamers don't have a herd of old PCs running old
versions of the OS and supporting the tiny percentage of weirdos who
DO doesn't really make financial sense. Still, I wish there was an way
to allow people like me to still access their games on Steam on these
older machines
(And don't say 'install Linux' ;-)
Anyway, it's not as if you'll immediately lose access to your games if
you're still running Windows 10 32-bit; the current client will
continue to work and there won't be an immediate push to force
Win10-32 users to upgrade. But they've made it clear that it will
happen eventually: "We strongly encourage all 32-bit Windows users to
update [their OS] sooner rather than later."
* Valve's announcement: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/49A1-B944-48B8-FF00
(and technically, it's only 32-bit Windows, not 32-bit operating
systems, but let's be frank: that's pretty much ALL of 32-bit
operating systems).
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
Oh sure, we've all been running 64-bit executables on 64-bit operating
systems made for 64-bit processors for years now... but only now can
we call it for 32-bit gaming. Why? Because Steam has announced that it
is dropping support for 32-bit operating systems.*
(And yes, I'm being a bit tongue-in-cheek here. Still, the
announcement is genuine, and where goes Valve, so goes the
rest of the PC gaming industry usually, so it's not a
completely inaccurate take on the issue)
I, of course, get grumpy about this sort of thing, because it does cut
off access to my games on a number of older computers. I understand
their logic --most gamers don't have a herd of old PCs running old
versions of the OS and supporting the tiny percentage of weirdos who
DO doesn't really make financial sense. Still, I wish there was an way
to allow people like me to still access their games on Steam on these
older machines
(And don't say 'install Linux' ;-)
Anyway, it's not as if you'll immediately lose access to your games if
you're still running Windows 10 32-bit; the current client will
continue to work and there won't be an immediate push to force
Win10-32 users to upgrade. But they've made it clear that it will
happen eventually: "We strongly encourage all 32-bit Windows users to
update [their OS] sooner rather than later."
* Valve's announcement:
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/49A1-B944-48B8-FF00
(and technically, it's only 32-bit Windows, not 32-bit operating
systems, but let's be frank: that's pretty much ALL of 32-bit
operating systems).
I'll just say that supporting 32-bit is the opposite of paving the way
for new hard drive memory increases to the tune of 10 TeraBytes. To me, anything to make that memory increase come sooner will be gravy. Are we running calculators?
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