Nvidia is ending driver support for 3D Vision and older laptop GPUs

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You can ditch the 3D shades now.

Before virtual reality headsets made a spirited push into homes, companies were pushing 3D solutions, because hey, if you want to be immersed then you need to strap some kind of hardware onto your face, right? Well, you can finally take off those 3D glasses you bought nearly a decade ago—Nvidia is ending support for 3D Vision next month.

Support for 3D Vision comes to an official end with the 418 driver series, the last of which will be doled out at the end of April, Nvidia says. From there on out, if you want to continue donning your 3D glasses, you'll need to stick with the final driver release.

We don't hear much about 3D Vision these days, or 3D in general, which has stepped aside in favor of VR, augmented reality, and mixed reality experiences. 3D Vision debuted way back in 2008 (called GeForce 3D Vision at the time), with Nvidia selling a set 3D glasses that had 120Hz LCD screens in each lens. Then in 2011, Nvidia released a set of second generation 3D Vision glasses—3D Vision 2—which improved depth perception and came with a lower price tag. At the time, Nvidia boasted there were over 550 games compatible with 3D Vision and 3D Vision 2.

In addition to axing 3D Vision, Nvidia is also ending support for laptops powered by a Kepler-series GPU. 

"Game Ready driver upgrades, including performance enhancements, new features, and bug fixes, will be available for systems utilizing mobile Maxwell, Pascal, and Turing-series GPUs for notebooks, effective April 2019," Nvidia states in a separate support document.

As with 3D Vision, Nvidia will continue to address security issues through April of next year.

If you're wondering whether your mobile GPU is based on Kepler or not, you can consult this handy list. 

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Paul Lilly
Paul Lilly

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).