halo infinite momentary graphical freeze on linux issue: [drm] fence fallback timer expired

documented on 2025-02-08 with an up-to-date arch linux system.

$ uname -a
Linux mithril 6.13.1-arch2-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri, 07 Feb 2025 22:24:02 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux

while playing halo infinite multiplayer the video will freeze for approx 0.5-1 seconds. each one of these freezes corresponds to one of these lines in dmesg:

$ dmesg --follow
...
[  507.837490] [drm] Fence fallback timer expired on ring comp_1.2.0
[  560.429686] [drm] Fence fallback timer expired on ring comp_1.1.1
[  618.597949] [drm] Fence fallback timer expired on ring comp_1.1.0
[  669.886162] [drm] Fence fallback timer expired on ring comp_1.2.1
[  670.454162] [drm] Fence fallback timer expired on ring comp_1.2.1
[  672.677175] [drm] Fence fallback timer expired on ring comp_1.2.0
[  676.414188] [drm] Fence fallback timer expired on ring comp_1.2.1
[  677.653193] [drm] Fence fallback timer expired on ring comp_1.2.1
[  687.246233] [drm] Fence fallback timer expired on ring comp_1.2.1
[  703.534299] [drm] Fence fallback timer expired on ring comp_1.2.0
[  720.342369] [drm] Fence fallback timer expired on ring comp_1.1.1
[  838.374817] [drm] Fence fallback timer expired on ring comp_1.3.0
[ 1303.672881] [drm] Fence fallback timer expired on ring comp_1.2.1
[ 1304.320885] [drm] Fence fallback timer expired on ring comp_1.2.1
[ 1506.152866] [drm] Fence fallback timer expired on ring comp_1.2.0

update 2025-05-19

this no longer occurs

$ uname -a
Linux mithril 6.14.6-arch1-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri, 09 May 2025 17:36:18 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux