AMD releases new Radeon Software option for minimal installation

AMD video card owners can now perform a minimal installation when installing drivers. It is no longer necessary to install the full Radeon Software package. There is also an option to install drivers only.

The change has been implemented in Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 21.4.1. When installing, users are presented with three options: full install, minimal install, or drivers only. Previously it was not possible to choose and all software was always installed.

In addition to the driver, the complete installation also includes AMD’s ReLive streaming software, the Radeon control panel and various monitoring tools. When choosing minimal installation, users will still get the control panel, but the ReLive software and other tools will no longer be installed. If users only install the driver, the Radeon control panel will not be installed on the computer. Overclocking is then only possible if users use another tool and all settings have to be adjusted in games.

The new software also includes an updated AMD Link client for Windows, for streaming games to other desktops with Radeon GPUs. There is now support for streaming at 4k resolution and frame rates up to 144fps. It is also possible to stream to smartphones at 120Hz, provided that phones support a high refresh rate.

In addition, the driver adds support for AV1 decoding on Radeon RX 6000 series cards and fixes several issues. The new software does contain “known issues”, including possible shadow corruption in Cyberpunk 2077 if players use an RX 6000 card and enable ray tracing.