End playing new games on Windows 7 and 8 systems

At the end of 2021, Windows 11 arrives, which Microsoft's marketing department says is "tailored" for PC gamers. The transition to the new operating system is not mandatory, but soon even the most die-hard proponents of the old Windows will have to give up on them if they want to play new games. When we say old Windows, we mean Windows 7 and 8, and 8.1.

Namely, graphics card manufacturers (Nvidia and AMD) have announced the shutdown of support for these systems. This means that users of their graphics cards on Windows 7 and 8 will no longer receive the latest drivers and optimizations for new games.

Nvidia will discontinue support for Win 7 and 8 after August 31, 2021, and in addition to no longer running drivers for older OSes, it is almost done with support for GTX 600 and 700 series cards.

AMD discontinued support for Windows 7 64-bit this week, and along the way retired old graphics cards from the R7 and R9 200, R9 300, R9 Fury, and Nano series.

Technically, new games will still be able to run on old systems (and graphics cards) without new drivers, but in that case, players will be deprived of playing games "in full force". In other words, it doesn't make sense to pair a current graphics card with old Windows (as much as you hate the new ones) because then you practically give up its full functionality.