For most of Valence's life, everyone downloaded the same 810 megabytes — whether their computer had an NVIDIA card, an AMD card, or no dedicated graphics at all. It worked. But it was heavy, and most of that weight was GPU code your particular machine would never run.
Valence 1.3 changes how it arrives. The new slim installer takes one quick look at your hardware during setup and brings down only the acceleration your card actually uses. Same private workspace, in less than a third of the download.
One quick look at your machine
The idea is almost boring in its simplicity. Instead of packing every possible graphics backend into one enormous file, the slim installer checks what’s in your computer — right there on your machine, with nothing about your hardware sent anywhere — and downloads only what fits.
There’s no “NVIDIA edition” to pick from a list. It’s one download that quietly becomes the right build for the machine it lands on. On a laptop with no dedicated graphics, it stays lean and never pulls a pack at all.
A calmer first run
The install got lighter; so did the first five minutes. Setup is now a guided, unhurried sequence: Valence takes that one look at your hardware, shows you exactly what it found, fetches anything missing with honest per-item progress, and hands you a workspace that’s already using your graphics card. No wall of options, no guesswork — a clear path from download to your first conversation.
And once you’re in, a small badge beside the wordmark keeps you oriented: which AI you’re talking to, and where it runs. One click for the full picture — including how to switch.
Two ways in
Slim is the right choice for almost everyone. It does need the internet once, during setup — so if you’re installing on an offline or locked-down machine, the original all-in-one installer is still here, with every backend bundled and nothing to fetch afterward.
Both are the same application, with the same privacy: your conversations, models, and memory stay on your computer, and no account is required. The slim installer’s single trip to the network is to bring down your graphics pack — and only that.