AMD Adrenalin 26.10.1 Known Issues: Which Games Crash, on Which Radeon Cards, and the Workarounds

AMD released Adrenalin 26.10.1 on October 20 as a WHQL Recommended driver. The headline change is for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4: game optimizations, plus a fix for "stuttering observed in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 on Radeon RX 6000 series graphics products and above." It also adds optimizations for STAR WARS: Galactic Racer and FINAL FANTASY RESONANCE.

The release notes also carry a known-issues list of eleven entries, and seven of them are game crashes, hangs or driver timeouts. AMD publishes these when the driver ships, so this is not a list of user complaints. AMD is telling you, in advance, which games may break on which cards. Back2Gaming and TechPowerUp carry the same list.

If your game is not below, this driver is not known to break it. If it is, the workaround is usually a setting, not a rollback.

The list, by game

Game	Cards affected	What happens	AMD's workaround
Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced	RX 7000	Intermittent crash or driver timeout	None given
War Thunder	RX 5000	Intermittent driver timeout	Use Adrenalin 26.9.1
Valor Mortis	RX 7000; RX 7600	Driver timeouts; on the RX 7600, system shutdowns	None given
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach	RX 9000	Intermittent hang with FSR on	Turn FSR off
Cyberpunk 2077	Some RX 9000	Crash or timeout with FSR Upscaling, Anti-Lag and in-game frame generation all on, while video plays on a second display	Turn off in-game frame generation
Any game	Any	Crash or timeout when opening or closing overlays with the Performance Metrics Overlay on	Turn the metrics overlay off for now
Any game	RX 9000	Crash or hang when switching apps or toggling overlays with in-game FSR Frame Generation on	Turn on V-Sync in the game
Fallout 76	Ryzen AI Max PRO 400	Black screen at launch	None given
FINAL FANTASY RESONANCE	Ryzen AI Max PRO 400	Intermittent system shutdowns	None given

The two non-game entries: AI Bundle components may fail to install in regions with limited access to HuggingFace and GitHub, and Smart Access Memory may switch itself off after installing the driver on Windows 10. If you are on Windows 10, check that SAM is still on after you install; Adrenalin shows it in its settings, and it depends on Resizable BAR being on in your BIOS. Losing it costs frame rate in some games without any error to tell you.

What to do, game by game

Black Flag Resynced on an RX 7000 card. No workaround from AMD, and the game has had its own crash reports since its July 9 launch on every brand of GPU, so not every crash is this one. Before you roll anything back, try the usual first steps for this game: turn off frame generation while keeping upscaling on, and if you run ray tracing, try it off. If it still crashes and it did not on 26.9.x, going back one driver is a reasonable test. You give up the MW4 stutter fix, which only matters if you play MW4.

War Thunder on an RX 5000 card. AMD's own advice is to use 26.9.1. Note that this is not new: the same timeout was on the known-issues list for 26.9.2, so it has survived two releases. Players with other Radeon cards have their own long-running DX12 timeouts in War Thunder. In a War Thunder forum thread that started with 26.8.1 in August, RX 9070 XT owners were still reporting timeouts on 26.9.1, 26.9.2 and 26.10.1 as of October 25. AMD said in the 26.8.1 notes that the DX12 problem was under investigation and gave two workarounds: roll back, or use DX11 mode. Switching War Thunder to DX11 in its launcher is the easier one, and players in that thread report it working. Some went all the way back to 26.7.1 to keep DX12.

Valor Mortis on an RX 7000 card. The game only launched on October 13, and AMD lists both driver timeouts on RX 7000 and full system shutdowns on the RX 7600. A PC that powers off mid-game is alarming, so it is worth knowing it is on AMD's list and not a sign your power supply is failing, at least if it only happens in this game. There is no AMD workaround. Lowering settings to cut GPU load is worth a try; otherwise the choice is to wait for a fix or play something else for now.

Death Stranding 2 on an RX 9000 card. Turn FSR off. You lose the upscaling boost, so you may need to drop a quality preset or the output resolution to hold the same frame rate, but a lower preset beats a game that hangs.

Cyberpunk 2077 on an RX 9000 card. This one needs a specific combination: FSR Upscaling, Anti-Lag and the game's frame generation all on, with video playing on a second monitor. Turn off in-game frame generation, or stop the second-screen video. Most players will never hit it.

Overlays. If you keep AMD's Performance Metrics Overlay up while gaming, turn it off until the next driver; the crash comes when you open or close overlays. On RX 9000 with FSR Frame Generation, AMD's workaround is in-game V-Sync, which also stops the crashes when you Alt-Tab.

Should you install 26.10.1 at all?

For most Radeon owners, yes. The MW4 stutter fix is a real one for RX 6000 and newer, and that is the biggest game of the month. Our Modern Warfare 4 benchmarks round-up shows how well Radeon cards run it once the driver is right: the RX 9070 XT beat the RTX 5080 in ComputerBase's 1440p test.

The cases for skipping it are narrow: an RX 5000 card and War Thunder, an RX 7000 card and Black Flag Resynced or Valor Mortis, or an RX 7600 and Valor Mortis, where the symptom is a shutdown. If that is you and 26.9.x was stable, stay there.

Rolling back cleanly

1. Download the version you want from AMD's previous drivers page for your card. For War Thunder on RX 5000, that is 26.9.1.
2. Disconnect from the internet so Windows Update cannot slip a driver in.
3. Remove the current driver with AMD Cleanup Utility or Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) in Safe Mode.
4. Install the older package and reconnect.
5. In Adrenalin, turn off automatic driver updates until a newer release lists your issue as fixed.

When to expect fixes

AMD gives no dates for known issues. It usually ships at least one Adrenalin driver a month, so the next chance is the next release, most likely in November, and the thing to read is its Fixed Issues list, not the headline. Do not assume a new version fixes your game just because it is newer: the War Thunder RX 5000 timeout has now appeared on the known-issues list of two releases in a row.

If you are on Nvidia instead, October's equivalent was the GeForce 621.01 black-screen bug, now fixed for RTX 50 cards by hotfix 621.12.

The short version

• Adrenalin 26.10.1, WHQL Recommended, October 20, 2026. Fixes MW4 stutter on RX 6000 and newer.
• Known crashes: Black Flag Resynced (RX 7000), War Thunder (RX 5000), Valor Mortis (RX 7000; shutdowns on the RX 7600), Death Stranding 2 with FSR (RX 9000), Cyberpunk 2077 with FSR, Anti-Lag and frame gen (some RX 9000), and overlay toggling.
• Workarounds: FSR off in Death Stranding 2, frame gen off in Cyberpunk, metrics overlay off, V-Sync on with FSR Frame Generation, 26.9.1 or DX11 for War Thunder.
• Windows 10: check Smart Access Memory is still on after installing.
• Fixes: no dates. Watch the next driver's Fixed Issues list, likely in November.

Related reading

• GeForce 621.01 black screens and the 621.12 hotfix
• Windows 11 mouse stutter in games, fixed in KB5127648
• RX 9070 XT vs RTX 5070 Ti
• Bottleneck calculator, to check what is really limiting your frame rate