hyprfreeze

Hyprfreeze is a utility to suspend a game process (and other programs) in Hyprland and Sway.

Hyprfreeze.mp4

Useful to:

• Pause single-player games that can't normally be paused (Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3, ...)
• Pause cutscenes to read the subtitles or if you suddenly need to leave your desk
• Save system resources (excluding RAM) if you need them for another computer task, or if the game's pause menu uses too many

Note: Running games in gamescope is highly recommended. (See #1)

Installation

Arch Linux

Hyprfreeze is available in AUR.

Dependencies

• a compatible window manager (hyprland or sway) to get the PID of the active window
• jq to parse json
• psmisc contains 'pstree' which is required to list child processes

  Optional

• hyprprop or swayprop to get the pid of a window by selecting it with your mouse

  Highly Recommended

• gamescope fixes mouse input not working in other XWayland windows after pausing a Wine game. It's also the superior way to game in Wayland anyway.

Basher

Hyprfreeze is compatible with shell script package manager Basher.

basher install Zerodya/hyprfreeze

Manual

Clone this repo and symlink the hyprfreeze script to a directory in your PATH:

git clone https://github.com/Zerodya/hyprfreeze.git Hyprfreeze
ln -s $(pwd)/Hyprfreeze/hyprfreeze $HOME/.local/bin

Usage

Add a bind in your Hyprland or Sway config to pause the current active window:

# ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf
...
# Toggle freeze on active window
bind = , PAUSE, exec, hyprfreeze -a

Available flags

-h, --help            show help message

-a, --active          toggle suspend by active window
-p, --pid             toggle suspend by process id
-n, --name            toggle suspend by process name/command
-r, --prop            toggle suspend by clicking on window (hyprprop/swayprop must be installed)

-s, --silent          don't send notification
-t, --notif-timeout   notification timeout in milliseconds (default 5000)
--info                show information about the process
--dry-run             doesn't actually suspend/resume a process, useful with --info
--debug               enable debug mode

Examples:

# Pause game by process name
hyprfreeze -n eldenring.exe

# Get info about a process by clicking on its window, without suspending it
hyprfreeze -r --info --dry-run

Disclaimer

There is always the risk, although slim, that an application may crash.

This is intrinsically related to modifying running processes and is not something that Hyprfreeze can prevent.

Please make sure to save your data before using hyprfreeze.