Valve's Dota 2 to drop support for 32-bit systems, DirectX 9, and OpenGL

The mega popular multiplayer battle arena game Dota 2 is dropping support for several aging technologies like 32-bit operating systems, DirectX 9, and others soon. Valve says the changes are needed to keep the game fresh and development streamlined.

While no exact schedule was shared, the planned changes will be rolling out to the game in the coming months, with Valve saying they are beneficial changes for both the game and the Source 2 engine powering it.

Here's what's planned:

• Remove support for Dota on 32-bit systems. You will need to have a 64-bit machine and OS to run Dota.
• Remove support for DirectX 9. Customers using DirectX 9 will instead switch to DirectX 11.
• Remove support for OpenGL. Customers using OpenGL will instead switch to Vulkan.
• Remove support for macOS versions below 10.14.
• Remove support for XAudio (-xaudio) and switch to using SDL Audio (-sdlaudio).

"For the vast majority of players, nothing will change when these changes are implemented," Valve says. Considering the complete number of users on Steam that use 32-bit operating systems is now under half a percent, the change shouldn't affect very many Dota 2 players. 32-bit specifically has been going away for a while now across the industry, with even Windows and graphics drivers of Nvidia and AMD phasing out support.

"Most players are already benefiting from the newer technologies, whether it's via larger content sizes, higher frame rates, better graphical fidelity, or cleaner sounding audio," the developer adds. "Removing these older technologies will let us streamline our development efforts as well as use the newer features of these APIs to provide an even better Dota experience."

The information was shared in a blog alongside details on The International tournament's ticket sales and in-game HUD updates for a better spectator experience. Find the full report here. Valve encouraged players still using the mentioned aging graphics APIs and audio systems to switch over to the newer versions now and report any bugs that show up.