Gamescope is developed by Valve and none of these parameters gives you unfair competitive advantage. I’ve used gamescope for many years and never had an issue.

Gamescope does support Reshade effects, and I would not encourage enabling those.

Thanks. I’ll update the post.

I have edited my original title.

Sorry. Counter strike. I edited my original title.

Thanks for the input. I’ve expanded on this point and tried to explain how it works in my original post.

Without adaptive sync is still better than native resolution without gamescope, so I’m not sure why you’re so dismissive. I’m just trying to share a list of tweaks that made the experience better.

Adaptive sync + downscaled resolution with black bars + -noreflex + sane graphics settings in CS

I think this is incorrect. I suspect it is because I am using a variable refresh rate display (LG 38GN950P). According to arch docs

If your monitor supports it, enable variable refresh rate by passing the --adaptive-sync flag

Also: https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/207322/what-does-vsync-mean-on-a-variable-refresh-rate-monitor

However, I am forcing gamescope to downscale to play at a lower resolution (without the game looking like a blurry mess)

Super happy with Fedora. Both KDE and Gnome spins are great. So far no stability issues. The only thing I miss from EndeavourOS is AUR, but honestly, most apps I use are available in flatpak or homebrew anyway.