Nyrna

Nyrna is a free, open-source desktop utility that suspends games and applications, similar to the incredibly useful sleep/suspend function found in consoles like the Nintendo Switch and Sony PlayStation. You can suspend your game (and its resource usage) at any time, then resume it whenever you wish, at the push of a button.

The project is developed by Merrit (Kristen McWilliam) under the Merritt Codes brand, with the official site at nyrna.merritt.codes. It is built with Flutter (Dart) and released under the GPL-3.0 license, with the source hosted on github.com/Merrit/nyrna, where it has gathered over 1,300 stars and 56 releases.

While Nyrna is best known as a game pause tool, it works with any process: 3D renders, video encoding jobs, and software compilation can all be paused and resumed. This makes it useful beyond gaming, as a general-purpose "hold that task" tool for Linux and Windows desktops.

Suspend Games

Nyrna is designed around games that cannot normally be paused. Use cases highlighted by the official site include:

• Pause cutscenes to read the subtitles, examine the scene, or answer the door.
• Pause games that can't normally be paused, such as single-player games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring.
• Suspend games whose pause screens keep the system running hot or playing unwanted music.
• Suspend between checkpoints, for example in Hollow Knight.

Suspend Applications

Nyrna can also suspend normal, non-game applications, such as:

• 3D renders (for example Blender)
• Video encoding jobs
• Software compilation builds

The CPU and GPU resources are being used by such a task, possibly for hours, when you would like to use the system for something else. With Nyrna you can suspend that program, freeing up the resources (excluding RAM) until the process is resumed, without losing where you were: the middle of a long job, or a gaming session between save points.

Free and Open Source

Nyrna is completely free, distributed through the Microsoft Store, Flathub, and GitHub releases, with the source available under the GPL-3.0 license. Development is supported by donations rather than paid licensing.

Nyrna works by suspending the target process at the operating system level. When a process is suspended, the OS stops scheduling it for CPU time, which also stops the GPU work it submits. The process is frozen in place: its memory stays allocated and its state is preserved, so resuming picks up exactly where it left off.

This is the same mechanism as the console sleep function, but applied to individual applications instead of the whole system. Because the process is suspended rather than terminated or hibernated, RAM usage is not freed; the suspended program simply consumes no CPU or GPU resources.

One question people ask is why Nyrna does not use CRIU (Checkpoint/Restore In Userspace) to freeze and restore processes. According to the project FAQ, CRIU does not currently support suspending GUI applications, which is why Nyrna relies on the operating system's native process suspension instead.

Nyrna is distributed through several channels depending on your platform. All options are listed on the official download page.

Platform	Channel	Notes
Linux	Flathub	Flatpak package, id codes.merritt.Nyrna
Linux	Portable	Run directly, no sandbox
Windows	Microsoft Store	Store listing, easiest updates
Windows	Installer	Classic .exe setup from GitHub releases
Windows	Portable	Zip archive, no installation

Linux Requirements

A couple of packages are required for Nyrna to run on Linux, even when using the Flatpak version:

• wmctrl - window management control
• xdotool - X11 automation and window focus handling

Distribution	Command
Fedora	sudo dnf install wmctrl xdotool
Debian/Ubuntu	sudo apt install wmctrl xdotool
Arch	sudo pacman -S wmctrl xdotool
OpenSUSE	sudo zypper install wmctrl xdotool

After installing these packages, restart Nyrna if it is already running.

Once Nyrna is installed and running, it sits in the background and waits for a hotkey press. The default hotkey is the Pause key: while a game or application is focused, pressing it toggles suspend/resume for the active window. The hotkey can be changed in the settings.

CLI toggle: Nyrna can also be invoked from the command line with the -t or --toggle flag:

./nyrna --toggle                    # Linux portable

flatpak run codes.merritt.Nyrna --toggle    # Linux Flatpak

.\nyrna.exe --toggle               # Windows

Specific Applications

Separate hotkeys can be set in the settings to toggle suspend/resume for specific applications. This is useful when you regularly suspend the same program, such as a particular game or a renderer. Note that only the GUI method is available for specific applications; the CLI toggle always targets the active window.

Nyrna can be invoked conveniently with a hotkey. The default Pause key works through the GUI, and the CLI --toggle flag opens up deeper integration with your desktop environment or input devices.

KDE Plasma

To bind a hotkey on KDE Plasma:

1. Open System Settings and navigate to Shortcuts > Custom Shortcuts.
2. Click the New button, then choose Global Shortcut > Command/URL.
3. Set the Command field to nyrna --toggle (or flatpak run codes.merritt.Nyrna --toggle if using the Flatpak version).
4. Click Apply and set the desired hotkey.

Wayland

Wayland does not support global hotkeys, so the other methods described in the documentation will not work on Wayland. You can still use your desktop environment's built-in hotkey functionality to trigger the CLI method described above.

Gamepad Control

You can use a tool like AntiMicroX to trigger the Nyrna hotkey with your gamepad, allowing you to suspend and resume your game with just your controller, without leaving the couch.

Nyrna competes with a range of approaches to pausing or freezing running software, from console-style sleep to OS-level power management and manual process controls.

Criteria	Nyrna	Console Sleep (Switch/PS)	OS Suspend/Hibernate	Task Manager Suspend	CRIU Tools
Scope	Single process	Whole console	Whole system	Single process	Process tree
Resume speed	Instant	Instant	Seconds to minutes	Instant	Seconds
RAM usage while paused	Kept	Kept	Freed (hibernate)	Kept	Freed (checkpoint)
Hotkey trigger	Yes, global	Dedicated button	Power button	GUI only	CLI only
GUI applications	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Not supported yet
Platforms	Linux, Windows	Console hardware	All desktop OSes	Windows	Linux
Cost	Free, open source	Hardware bundled	OS built-in	OS built-in	Free, open source

Nyrna vs Console Sleep: Console sleep suspends the entire system, which is trivial for a dedicated machine. Nyrna brings the same instant suspend and resume to a PC, but only for the target process, so the rest of your system (chat apps, browsers, music) keeps running.

Nyrna vs OS Suspend/Hibernate: System suspend freezes everything and hibernate writes RAM to disk, both taking seconds to recover from. Nyrna resumes instantly and keeps other work alive, but it only covers one process at a time.

Nyrna vs Task Manager Suspend: Windows Task Manager can suspend a process through its Details tab, but there is no hotkey and you must switch to the Task Manager window, which is awkward while a game is in exclusive fullscreen. Nyrna is a one-key solution with app-specific bindings.

Nyrna vs CRIU Tools: CRIU can checkpoint and restore whole process trees, and even migrate them between machines, but it does not currently support suspending GUI applications, which rules it out for games. Nyrna trades that advanced capability for broad desktop compatibility.

Manipulating running applications is generally not something they expect, so a few things can go wrong. The official docs list common issues and their fixes, and the project tracks the rest on the GitHub issue tracker.

Anti-Cheat Software

If you have an issue suspending a game, check whether it uses Easy Anti-Cheat or similar software. Nyrna is unlikely to work with games that use anti-cheat software, because these frameworks are designed specifically to block other software from interacting with the game. Sometimes the anti-cheat software can be disabled, such as in Elden Ring. You can check a game's middleware on PCGamingWiki.

Windows

• Try running Nyrna as administrator if suspension fails or shortcuts do not register.

Shortcuts Don't Work

Some games grab exclusive control of the mouse and keyboard, which can cause Nyrna's shortcuts to stop working. This is an unfortunate limitation of the game, and not something that can be fixed in Nyrna. Known examples include Doom 2016 and Metro Exodus. In this case, use the GUI method to toggle suspend/resume, and consider contacting the game's developers about exclusive input capture.

Platform	Status	Notes
Windows	✅ Supported	Microsoft Store, installer, portable
Linux (X11)	✅ Supported	Flatpak or portable; needs wmctrl + xdotool
Linux (Wayland)	🟡 Partial	No global hotkeys; use DE hotkey + CLI toggle (KDE Plasma supported)
macOS	❌ Not available	No official builds

The project has also shipped Snap packaging in the past (the snap/ directory is still in the repository), but the current download page focuses on Flathub for Linux. Recent development has added KDE Wayland support, reflecting ongoing work on modern Linux desktops.

Nyrna is a small but active open-source project. The repository on GitHub has over 1,300 stars, 26 forks, and 7 contributors, with 56 releases published and the latest version at v2.27.2. The codebase is primarily Dart (87.7%) using Flutter, with C++ (5.7%) and CMake (3.8%) for platform integration.

The project is funded through donations. The developer accepts support via GitHub Sponsors, Ko-fi, PayPal, and Buy Me A Coffee, with more details on the support page.

Nyrna is frequently discussed in PC gaming communities, including Reddit's r/pcgaming, where users report using it to make souls-like or cutscene-heavy games more bearable. The tool has also been proposed as an inspiration for console-style suspend features in platforms like Steam.