AMD Teases New 'Adrenalin' Radeon Software

News
By Derek Forrest
published

AMD quietly teased a new version of its Radeon Software in a video published on the company’s YouTube page.

The video itself reminds us of the RX Vega teaser trailer (swooping close-up shots of a logo), and it doesn’t provide any indication of the possible features of the new Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition. Renaming driver software isn’t uncommon for AMD; the company has been doing it every year since 2015, when Catalyst became Crimson. Then came Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition (Crimson lives again?), which debuted about a year ago. Now, it seems we’ll be seeing a name change just in time for Christmas. A shot in the arm for the holiday season (get it, Adrenalin).

AMD has long been the writer of its own press releases, but giving its driver software the Vega and Ryzen hype treatment in the form of a teaser trailer seems to be going a bit overboard. The bits and pieces of information that leaked out (officially or unofficially) prior to the debut of the company’s Ryzen CPUs and Vega graphics cards demonstrated its ability to successfully market a product, but this unannounced teaser trailer for free driver software seems like a way for the company's PR department to clear out the rest of its budget before the new year. Just when you thought there wasn't any steam left in the engine, AMD shoveled another heap of coal into the hype train.

We won’t have to wait long for the renamed AMD graphics driver; the video stated that Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition will be arriving in December.

Derek Forrest
Derek Forrest
Derek Forrest is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He writes hardware news and reviews gaming desktops and laptops.
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11 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Roland Of Gilead
    We have a saying in Ireland for this kind of stuff.....'Big swing of the Mickey!'
    This is some serious Trump style narrative. Take nothing, make it something, and sing until everyone hears about it! What a load of tosh. It's a driver for god's sake! So what.
    Reply
  • AgentLozen
    keith12 said:
    This is some serious Trump style narrative. Take nothing, make it something, and sing until everyone hears about it! What a load of tosh. It's a driver for god's sake! So what.

    NewbieGeek voted down for this answer
    No, no. Let him speak.
    Reply
  • redgarl
    So they release a big driver suite every year... and they are slamed for doing it?

    They can call it the way they want, but you know what, at least they doing a lot of efforts.
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    Perhaps they've added some big features worthy of people's attention, such as an equivalent to Nvidia's Shadowplay for GPU-accelerated screen recording, for example. This teaser might have been rather vague, but if there have been substantial additions to their software, there might be an expanded version of the trailer outlining those things once the new software launches in the coming weeks.
    Reply
  • berezini
    Lame
    Reply
  • bigpinkdragon286
    20433140 said:
    No, no. Let him speak.
    No, no. Let them down vote. It too is a form of speech. We're in a public place and the author of the post isn't speaking to a voiceless audience.

    keith12 said:
    This is some serious Trump style narrative. Take nothing, make it something, and sing until everyone hears about it! What a load of tosh. It's a driver for god's sake! So what.
    So, a bit like your response to the tiny news article about AMD's PR release?
    Reply
  • Roland Of Gilead
    20436877 said:
    20433140 said:
    No, no. Let him speak.
    No, no. Let them down vote. It too is a form of speech. We're in a public place and the author of the post isn't speaking to a voiceless audience.

    keith12 said:
    This is some serious Trump style narrative. Take nothing, make it something, and sing until everyone hears about it! What a load of tosh. It's a driver for god's sake! So what.
    So, a bit like your response to the tiny news article about AMD's PR release?

    I think it was a simple and effective analogy :) But I certainly didn't mean it to be incendiary, and if I've offended anyone at all, I apologise.

    With that said, the point still stands. It's a driver release. So what. To do a big reveal, as if it was something important is, well, just not needed. YAWN!


    Reply
  • AgentLozen
    bigpinkdragon286 said:
    No, no. Let them down vote. It too is a form of speech. We're in a public place and the author of the post isn't speaking to a voiceless audience.

    Zinger! You used what I said against me!

    I was trying to encourage more Trump bashing cause I'm about that life. I didn't mean to imply that keith12's right to speak is anymore important than NewbieGeek's right to downvote. I get it though, you lose the majority of your message when you're communicating with just text.
    Reply
  • bigpinkdragon286
    20446085 said:
    bigpinkdragon286 said:
    No, no. Let them down vote. It too is a form of speech. We're in a public place and the author of the post isn't speaking to a voiceless audience.

    Zinger! You used what I said against me!

    I was trying to encourage more Trump bashing cause I'm about that life. I didn't mean to imply that keith12's right to speak is anymore important than NewbieGeek's right to downvote. I get it though, you lose the majority of your message when you're communicating with just text.
    Except that Trump bashing, or encouraging more of it, is borderline trolling and bringing up of politics, both of which go right up against the No GRAPES policy that exists at Tom's, and against the general forum policies.

    20443740 said:
    I think it was a simple and effective analogy :) But I certainly didn't mean it to be incendiary, and if I've offended anyone at all, I apologise.

    With that said, the point still stands. It's a driver release. So what. To do a big reveal, as if it was something important is, well, just not needed. YAWN!
    While it's only my opinion, I for one haven't seen anything I would consider to be a big reveal, just a short article on a tech site that I read. Is your gripe intended toward the author of the article, for giving more coverage than you felt a driver release merits? Tom's announces new driver updates often. As for this driver release, I had already read about it in an email from AMD, but I appreciate that Tom's let more people know.

    A confirmation of continued commitment to a good cause, such as hardware support is important. Even when ATI had better hardware than NVIDIA, and that better hardware was priced more competitively, NVIDIA outsold ATI. Consumers aren't always well informed, and even when they are, brand bias carries a lot of weight in purchase decisions.

    Hearing that AMD is attempting to support it's customers in a timely fashion may help assuage feelings of brand bias.

    It is important for AMD to continue putting their products in front of consumers, so we can be reminded of what is available and make more informed decisions, even if it's just the announcement that they are renaming the driver suite. The driver is a significant component of a graphics card product. How many opportunities does AMD's RTG marketing department really have to push their products, especially after the disappointment following the Vega series launch?
    Reply
  • AgentLozen
    Hey my dude.

    Thanks for the heads up. I didn't even know there was a No GRAPES policy in place. That was an interesting read.
    Reply