GNOME 48 just launched with HDR visible by default, and VRR support is still experimental and hidden. VRR promises tear-free gaming without the input lag you get from traditional VSync. However, most info I find on VRR is for older GNOME versions, so I’m a bit lost. How exactly does VRR work on Linux now? Besides toggling the experimental VRR flag, are there any other steps needed to get VRR running properly in games? On Windows, I know you often have to adjust in-game settings like VSync and frame limits, but how does that translate to Linux? Also, are there known issues related to VRR on Linux in general or GNOME’s implementation specifically? What about NVIDIA drivers—do they cause trouble? If anyone has tried VRR recently on GNOME 48, what’s your experience?
1 Answer
I’ve been running VRR on GNOME for a while and honestly it feels pretty smooth. The general advice is to keep VSync enabled alongside VRR, but preferably at the system level rather than in-game. Wayland kind of has this system-wide VSync built-in, so that might cover it. I tried toggling in-game VSync and didn’t notice much difference in smoothness, so my recommendation is to just leave in-game VSync off if you can. But if someone knows otherwise, I’m all ears!
Interesting, thanks! I heard some games need in-game VSync on though.