AMD Announces The Radeon Software Adrenalin Driver

Written by Michael Larabel in AMD on 30 November 2017 at 09:00 AM EST. 38 Comments
AMD
AMD's embargo has just expired over the name of their new driver.

This shouldn't come as a big surprise, but AMD has been pushing out big annual updates to their "Radeon Software" graphics driver the past few years. In December they will be shipping the successor to Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition.

Today they aren't allowing driver details to be shared or anything of that like, but this embargo expiry is just concerning the name: Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition. And this picture was also provided under the now-expired NDA:


Not to be confused with the adrenaline hormone, the Radeon Software Adrenalin Driver is said to be inspired by the Adrenalin Rose flower.

What does this mean for AMD Linux users? Likely not too much. The open-source Radeon Linux driver is obviously its own game and the AMDGPU-PRO driver is where the code sharing takes place with their Windows driver. So it will just be a matter of if there are any big OpenGL/Vulkan improvements to find in Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition that will then be shared to -PRO or if it's just about updating the Windows software settings area and other cosmetic work or Direct3D 12 optimizations. But not many are using AMDGPU-PRO now on Linux given the maturity of AMDGPU+RadeonSI with AMD recommending the hybrid driver for workstation customers and those wanting the official Vulkan driver.

With the last Radeon Software Crimson ReLive briefing they also used it to talk about the open-source driver performance enhancements, so perhaps they'll do that again for the press, especially with all the open-source Radeon 2017 driver milestones.

But at least the Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition briefing allows me to inquire to the right folks about the state of open-sourcing their official Vulkan driver and the state of bringing their Radeon Software Settings UI control panel to Linux among other topics... (Any other questions you'd like answered? Post your questions in the comments in the forums.) But for today it's just the Adrenalin driver name that's being announced.
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