Ah ok, I will chalk this up to a reading comprehension failure on my part. Sounds like what I shared was actually the opposite of helpful. Sorry about that.

I gave up on Mint Cinnamon when I was trying to get my new build running due to persistent issues with tearing no matter what I tried. In my case, the issue appeared to be X11 so the recommendations I read pushed me to a Wayland based distro. After switching to Fedora Workstation (i.e., GNOME DE), I was able to easily enable VRR and HDR and now I never get tearing anymore; even with more graphics intensive games like CP 2077 and Enshrouded. Typically, I enable V-sync and/or a framerate cap and run games in fullscreen or borderless (preferred since it is less likely to freeze the display when I alt-tab).

I am not sure this is the minimum latency route as you mention but it solved 100% of my other issue and has been rock solid for gaming. GNOME seems to be a deal breaker for many, and possibly you as well, based on the comment about tiling window managers. Just figured I would share my own experience in the hopes it might be helpful.

Thank you kind stranger, I did not know about that command and will try it out. I typically avoid alt-tab with fullscreen in games for this reason and have to force quit the applications since the screen will be frozen.

I still tend to see an issue with setting up resolution and window settings on new games where the screen will stop refreshing once I commit the change and then I have to close the application and restart it to continue. I guess I could stick with windowed but it was my understanding that variable refresh rate only really works in full screen mode.

The title of this post caught my attention since I was wondering if I was missing something…I have a learned distrust of sleep mode due to peripherals occasionally not wanting to “wake up”, resulting in me having to reboot the device anyways. Granted, I haven’t been using Linux for very long so most of my computing experience is with MicroSlop OS machines; but after using them for 30+ years I have never heard a good argument for not shutting down if it isn’t a critical system like a server. It should also be noted that I have lived in places were AC mains power being on 24/7 wasn’t always a sure thing, so that probably plays a role in my thinking as well. Is there anything other than anecdotal evidence that suggests full power cycles are truly harmful and/or reduce service life? Truly curious now since I have no desire to buy new parts anytime soon given the current price hikes and availability issues.

I have only been running one of my GOG.com games via Lutris and it has been working like a charm till this weekend. I was initially concerned/confused when I clicked to launch that game from the link on my dock and it just didn’t do anything. Eventually, the game loaded and seemed OK with no data loss but I was still rather confused about what had changed (I regularly update my Fedora 43 Workstation system, daily or every other day). Can anyone elaborate on the recent changes to how Lutris handles games? I was running Disco Elysium via Wine (I think) and while I can accept the 10-15 second delay in the game startup now that I know something is going on in the background, I would like to have a better understanding of what, if anything, I could change to restore the former configuration.

This is really interesting. I started with Mint-Cinnamon since it sounded like it would be ideal for me as I had no desire to switch to Windows 11 and I needed a daily driver OS; I did not like Mint at all and spent too much time trying to make it work with newer hardware. Fedora Workstation has been a great experience for me and it checks all the boxes with minimal troubleshooting. What is about Arch that made you decide to switch? Genuinely curious as I am all-in on Linux now that I know I can do productivity stuff and gaming so easily and I don’t have to give another dime to MS.