I'm getting an entire screen graphics freeze occasionally for 1-5 seconds whenever a video intensive webpage such as youtube or facebook or kickstarter is open alongside Vendetta online in windowed mode.

What would cause this? I never got it on ubuntu before the multi threaded update and then I switched to arch with more or less the same gnome 3 configuration albeit a later version.

Video driver maybe? I haven't experienced that, though it might have been a couple weeks since I had youtube and VO running at the same time. I'll test that tonight if I remember.

I use the 32 bit version of Arch though. You didn't specify but it sounds like you use 64?

Which video driver are you using?

No issues on my end (32 bit Arch Linux w/ proprietary Nvidia driver).

Yeah mine has no problems with this either.
64-bit Arch Linux with the open source radeon driver.

64-bit Arch with the proprietary Nvidia driver on Gnome 3 (Mutter)

It's bizzare!

Mutter is a compositor and uses the 3d hardware for windowmanagery things. I'd recommend turning off compositing and see if it still does it. (I don't know if this is even possible anymore w/Gnome 3?)

I use AwesomeWM which does'nt do that.

Hmm, this reminds me of something similiar I saw on reddit - I asked a question:

http://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1971sn/i_get_a_1030_fps_increase_with_nvidia_by_doing/c8ofejs

I'm so confused as to how I would even go about configuring this, is it possible for me to switch to AwesoemWM but still use Gnome 3?

Gnome 3 uses Mutter for it's window manager. I know you used to be able to switch out Metacity in older versions of Gnome for other WMs, but I have no idea about Gnome 3. :/

Probably not the answer you want to hear, but I'd just leave GNOME altogether. Find a more lightweight replacement. I use openbox and tint2. Very functional, still kinda pretty, but amazing performance and practically no resource usage.

Anyway, VO works fine even when playing HD video on YouTube. Catalyst driver, Arch Linux, OpenBox, Chrome.