Taking to Nvidia’s support forums, MrEWhite got a response from a member of the Nvidia staff, who clarified that 32-bit CUDA applications are being deprecated in the new series of graphics cards.

“32-bit compilation native and cross-compilation were removed from CUDA 12.0 and later Toolkit,” says Nvidia’s own support page about the matter. “32-bit CUDA applications cannot be developed or debugged using CUDA 12.0 or later toolkit for any target architecture. Use the CUDA Toolkit from earlier releases for 32-bit compilation.”

This means that older games will have features that don’t work with newer Nvidia graphics cards. The support page does note that support for 32-bit CUDA applications will continue for older graphics cards, from the last-gen GeForce RTX 40-series GPUs, all the way back to the GeForce GTX 9-series GPUs.

A comprehensive list of titles that will be affected by this change has been made by ResetEra user RandomlyRandom67, and includes games like Borderlands 2, Metro: Last Light, Mirror’s Edge, Batman: Arkham City, Bulletstorm, and Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag. It is worth noting that, while players won’t be able to make use of PhysX features in these titles, they will still be completely playable.

More modern games that make use of 64-bit CUDA-based PhysX will be unaffected by this deprecation, and games like Batman: Arkham Knight, which feature a modern implementation of PhysX will still be able to make use of the feature.

Nvidia recently launched its first major graphics cards of the recently-unveiled GeForce RTX 50-series. Priced at $1,999, the top-of-the-line RTX 5090 features 32 GB of GDDR7 VRAM, 1,792 GB/sec memory bandwidth, 21,760 CUDA cores, 680 fifth-generation Tensor cores, and 170 fourth-generation ray tracing cores.

Just under it is the RTX 5080, which offers 16 GB of GDDR7 VRAM and 960 GB/sec memory bandwidth. Nvidia claimed during its presentation back in January that the RTX 5080 is able to offer double the performance of its immediate predecessor, the RTX 4080, in games like Far Cry 6, Alan Wake 2, and Black Myth: Wukong.

Nvidia is also getting ready to launch its mid-range offerings in the RTX 50-series of GPUs: the GeForce RTX 5070 and the RTX 5070 Ti. Both of these GPUs are meant for 1440p gaming, and will offer close performance to each other, albeit with major differences in VRAM. Check out our coverage of the announcement for more details.

While the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 have been out for a few days, just about any retailer selling the GPUs has been facing major stock shortages. Scalpers, on the other hand, have been able to get their hands on the new graphics cards and have been selling them for prices as high as $6,000.

The GPU is supposed to be priced at $1,999, while the RTX 5080 has a market retail price of $999. The scarcity and scalpers echo the state of the GPU market from the cryptocurrency boom.

Potential buyers for Nvidia’s new graphics cards have also complained about the lack of stocks on the company’s forums. Some claim to have seen GPUs available for 30 seconds before they sold out.

The fact that Nvidia’s latest high-end graphics cards shipped in such low stocks should come as no surprise – companies, including MSI, reportedly warned potential buyers earlier this week. Retailers like Overclockers UK indicated that they had only single-digit stocks of the RTX 5090 and triple-digit stocks of the RTX 5080.

“We are expecting greater demand than 40 series, but with the launch just before CNY and lots of other rumours circulating, initial waves of supply are poor and will probably take some time to build up,” posted Overclockers UK staff member Gibbo on the company’s forums. “So the stock we have will be made available from the launch via the webshop, but I know what we have is likely to last only seconds, minutes at most.”

The cause for these stock shortages is likely due to lower processor yields for Nvidia when it began manufacturing the new Blackwell-based GPUs. According to earlier reports, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang cited a design flaw in Blackwell, resulting in lower yields.

The GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 were both unveiled during CES 2025 earlier this month alongside the RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti. The former is the highest-end GPU currently offered by Nvidia, with 32 GB of GDDR7 VRAM, a memory bandwidth of 1,792 GB/sec, 21,760 CUDA cores, 680 fifth-generation Tensor cores, and 170 fourth-generation ray tracing cores.

The RTX 5080 is a slight downgrade, with 16 GB of GDDR7 VRAM, and 960 GB/sec memory bandwidth. The GPU is marketed to stand over the mid-range RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti, however, which feature 16 GB and 12GB of GDDR7 VRAM.

The release of both GPUs is joined by the launch of DLSS 4, which brings with it new features like multi-frame generation and a new transformer-based model.

Nvidia’s closest competitor, AMD, also unveiled new graphics cards – the Radeon RX 9060, RX 9060 XT, RX 9070, and RX 9070 XT – but they’re meant to target the mid-range market.

According to WCCFTech, one of the big companies making the graphics cards, MSI, has already warned of stock shortages. Reports have indicated that this shortage comes from poor communication between Nvidia and its partner companies who didn’t seem to get enough chips for their own custom GPU releases.

The same reports also indicate that, while there will be shortages at launch, stocks of the GPU are expected to be more stable sometime in February. This still means that some potential buyers might find it difficult to get their hands on the new graphics cards, however, since the stabilizing of GPU stocks will be more of a gradual process.

Retailers have also spoken about the suspects, with Overclockers UK stating on its forums that launch-day stocks for the RTX 5090 are only available in single-digit figures. The RTX 5080, on the other hand, will be more available, with a few hundred units in stock, but they will still likely sell out quickly.

“We are expecting greater demand than 40 series, but with the launch just before CNY and lots of other rumours circulating, initial waves of supply are poor and will probably take some time to build up,” posted Overclockers UK staff member Gibbo. “So the stock we have will be made available from the launch via the webshop, but I know what we have is likely to last only seconds, minutes at most.”

“We will also be trying to limit how many pre-orders we take, we will take some pre-orders but not thousands as we want to ensure customers get realistic expectations and are not waiting months.”

While it is currently unclear what this could mean for the GPUs and their pricing, going by history, we are likely to see quite a bit of scalping with massively inflated price tags. This means that the $999 RTX 5080 and the $1,999 RTX 5090 will likely be available at much higher prices than they should be thanks to scalpers trying to make a quick buck at the expense of potential buyers. We last saw this happen around 2021 with the cryptocurrency boom and the launch of Nvidia’s RTX 3000-series graphics cards.

Nvidia itself has posted a statement on the availability of its upcoming graphics cards, stating that the company and its partners are shipping more stock to retailers to curtail stock shortages.

“We expect significant demand for the GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 and believe stock-outs may happen. NVIDIA and our partners are shipping more stock to retail every day to help get GPUs into the hands of gamers.”

The GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 were unveiled during CES 2025 earlier this month alongside the RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti graphics cards. For more details, check out our coverage of the announcement, and check out some of the new DLSS 4 features while you’re at it.