One more update: I checked back later and vsync was off again. I had set it to “on” in Nvidia control panel, and after some time doing other things (not a reboot) I started Balatro and it was using a lot of GPU again - Nvidia control panel reverted to the “off” setting.
There are various reports of other utilities taking over vsync and other graphics settings (a big one is f.lux but I don’t have thaty installed). I think that Dell Optimizer’s “Applications” settings might have reset it, so I turned that function off (that is one difference between my Dell laptop and my homebuilt desktop). So far so good.
One more update: I checked back later and vsync was off again. I had set it to “on” in Nvidia control panel, and after some time doing other things (not a reboot) I started Balatro and it was using a lot of GPU again - Nvidia control panel reverted to the “off” setting.
There are various reports of other utilities taking over vsync and other graphics settings (a big one is f.lux but I don’t have thaty installed). I think that Dell Optimizer’s “Applications” settings might have reset it, so I turned that function off (that is one difference between my Dell laptop and my homebuilt desktop). So far so good.