Variable Refresh Rate "VRR" Support Comes Down To The Wire For GNOME 46

Today marks the UI, feature, and API/ABI freezes for the GNOME 46 desktop ahead of its stable release on 16 March. One feature coming down to the wire that looks like it may not make it -- unfortunately -- is the Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) integration.

This Week in GNOME this week noted the ongoing work around VRR for GNOME. In particular, refining the settings UI:

Additionally, the VRR backend support was updated. Dor Askayo explained that the variable refresh rate support for Mutter's native back-end was updated against the state of GNOME 46, a Firefox stuttering issue was fixed, dynamic frame scheduling is now supported, KMS thread coexistence is wired up, and other improvements. It is still treated though as an experimental feature and as such a gsettings command-line experimental feature option needs to be set. Dor ended his remarks with:

"I hope to get additional review and testing feedback, and if no major concerns remain, get the MR merged in its current form. It may or may not make it to GNOME 46 since it's a bit late in the development cycle, but I personally hope that it would. It's up to maintainers to make the call."

But with the code not yet merged and the freezes scheduled for today, it's not clear that it will make it for GNOME 46 unless it's accepted as a late experimental feature to help facilitate wider-spread testing.

In any event GNOME VRR support will otherwise be ironed out for the GNOME 47 cycle in the autumn. This latest VRR work comes thanks to the funding from Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund.