AMD has released its latest Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.5.2 non-WHQL display driver today. The new driver brings support for Microsoft's Agility SDK, a new tool to help improve the adoption rate of DirectX 12 by making it backwards compatible with much older OS versions. Support for HLSL Shader Model 6.6 has also been added with this driver. You can read more about DirectX 12 Agility SDK and Shader Model 6.6 here. It is noteworthy here that AMD has gone back and also added these optimizations to its 21.4.1 mega driver update, the company's last WHQL-signed driver.
In terms of game support, the 21.5.2 driver brings performance optimizations for the PC version of Days Gone that's landing today. However, performance numbers and such haven't been specified.
As is usually the case, the new driver has in it several bug fixes and they have been listed below:
Uninstalling or upgrading Radeon Software using the factory reset option may delete AMD chipset driver folders if they are stored in the same directory as the Radeon Software installation. Users who wish to perform a factory reset are recommended to use the latest AMD cleanup utility instead.
Cyberpunk 2077™ may experience shadow corruption on Radeon RX 6000 series graphics when ray tracing is enabled.
Intermittent loss of signal during AMD Link’s Stream Optimization if HEVC is used on Radeon RX 5000 series graphics products or later.
The download or launch Ryzen Master buttons in Radeon Software may intermittently disappear or may fail to initialize Ryzen Master.
FPS logging may log incorrectly or fail to log on Ryzen Mobile 4000 series and Ryzen Mobile 5000 series.
Radeon Software may experience a crash when Record & Stream tab is in use and a display is hot plugged.
A long list of known issues that are still being worked on has also been given:
Radeon™ Software might not get updated on Windows 7 platforms when updating from 21.4.1 or 21.5.2 to this release, if factory reset is enabled. As a workaround, users who wish to perform a factory reset are recommended to use the latest AMD cleanup utility instead.
Resident Evil Village™ may experience an intermittent application hang or TDR on AMD Radeon VII graphics products in the first mission of the game.
Enhanced Sync may cause a black screen to occur when enabled on some games and system configurations. Any users who may be experiencing issues with Enhanced Sync enabled should disable it as a temporary workaround.
Connecting two displays with large differences in resolution/refresh rates may cause flickering on Radeon RX Vega series graphics products.
Radeon performance metrics and logging features may intermittently report extremely high and incorrect memory clock values.
Radeon FreeSync™ may intermittently become locked while on desktop after performing task switching between extended and primary displays upon closing a game, causing poor performance or stuttering. A system restart is a potential workaround if this is experienced.
If Ryzen Master is not detected in Adrenalin software after installation, a system restart may be required.
If Blue or Black screen is observed in mobile systems, temporarily disable Enhanced sign-in.
A problem related to the AMD Link for Windows is also present in the list of unresolved issues:
- Intermittent grey frame corruption might be observed when streaming with HEVC on certain configurations via an Internet connection. A workaround is to use the AVC encoding setting instead.
The Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.5.2 driver is compatible with all AMD GPUs as well as iGPs starting from the GCN 1.0 or HD 7000 series up to the latest RDNA 2-based RX 6000 series products. If you wish to install the driver, you can do so by heading over to the official release notes page here.
