Now Working! - AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition

 October of last year (2021), I posted about issues with AMD's video card and gaming software management console.

I tried various tutorials to get it to work and went as far as uninstalling all video drivers from the system using several different driver removal software packages.  None of it worked.

I've been manually checking for driver updates since I couldn't get the console software to work on my system.  I'd check maybe every two months.  I refused to follow most recommendations of reinstalling the OS just to get this to work and I cursed AMD every time I had to do this manually.  It's not difficult to do, but this is 2022...I shouldn't have to be doing this manually.  I'd also check to see if I could get that console software to run after every update...it never worked (it wouldn't give an error but would flatout not work).

So, today, I checked and saw that there was a recent driver.  I downloaded it manually and installed it.  I checked to see if the console software would work - and it did!  I didn't change a thing with this system, so it wasn't something that I'd forgotten or didn't know how to do.

This tells me that it's a driver-, console- or installer-related issue.

I have noticed that my Nvidia GTX 1060 6 GB video card was still stronger than this AMD RX 6600 and between that and this console issue, was very close to getting rid of the RX 6600 and going back to the 1060 (it's in my storage closet).

Now I get to look at the console and see how well it compares to Nvidia's.

Newly-Installed Software on MBA M1

After watching a few videos on recommendations of free Mac software, I decided to download and install the following:

• Seashore - image/photo editor
• COT, or CotEditor - text editor that has sone coding capability (more advanced than TextEdit)
• CloudClip Manager - clipboard managing app
• AlDente Free - battery management app

I also saw the recommendation to install/use VLC, which was the very first software I installed on the MBA.

I will also be installing Audacity, as soon as they compile the software for Apple silicon, although I also have the option to use the Intel version, which would be translated by Rosetta.  Also, of all the software I installed, Audacity was the only one that I couldn't find at the App Store.  I got it at Mac | Audacity ® (audacityteam.org).

I may also install LibreOffice, which I use on my gaming PC (not sure how large the install for Macs).  For now, I'll rely upon Google's office suite of tools.

Of the bulleted software above, I'm running AlDente Free in the background and have the charge limit set to 80%.  When I installed it, my battery was at 100%, so I discharged it with AlDente to 80%.  I'll evaluate this software for maybe 6 months and if I like the results, I'll purchase the Pro version of AlDente.  And, up above, I lied. I said that Audacity was the only software I got from outside of the App Store, but AlDente was another I had to directly download from the author's GitHub.

Amazon Prime Sale - Sandisk 2TB Extreme Pro V2

This week I got a notice from Western Digital that they were having a two-day sale on Sandisk Extreme Pro v2 portable SSDs.  I almost bought it but checked Amazon and saw it on sale there as well.  

I ended up buying the 2TB version from Amazon, since I still had $70 to use from a birthday gift card.  With the gift card and the 50% off (from the list price), I paid $198 for a 2TB Pro V2 Sandisk portable SSD.

Now, I realize that both my Mac Mini (M1) and MBA (M1) will bottle-neck this SSD drive since their USB bandwidth is 10 Gb/s (USB 3.1 Gen 2), but at some point, I may get a new system that has the latest USB (3.2 Gen 2x2).  Think of it as future-proofing.

It would be nice for Sandisk to build these based on the Thunderbolt (v3) specs, though, especially since Apple has been using this spec for quite a while.