Ok, will take a look, thankyou for the help and info. :)

Any benchmarks to test gaming capability on Linux? I know some games come with in-game benchmarks and guess they are just perfect. Just cannot remember other games than Firestarter but that one is a bit too old as does it really matter if it runs at 300 or 400 F/s?

I use GALLIUM_HUD, VK_LAYER_MESA_overlay and DXVK_HUD for that purpose.

Thanks! Will see if I can manage to install these. Just curious what kind of a bump in performance I am getting.

Just to clarify, you don't need to install them. GALLIUM_HUD, VK_LAYER_MESA_overlay are part of Mesa, and DXVK_HUD is built in feature in dxvk. So it should be available out of the box for AMD users at least.

Nvidia users have harder time, at least with OpenGL, due to them not being part of Gallium3D. VK_LAYER_MESA_overlay and DXVK_HUD will work for Nvidia blob as well though.

Some references:

* VK_LAYER_MESA_overlay.
* DXVK_HUD (works both for dxvk and d9vk).
* GALLIUM_HUD

Oh I see. I did not use Linux much on my desktop, mainly on laptops without graphics cards. Now I have a lot to learn.

and totally separate the game+dependencies from the software of your base system just doesn't work that well in practice. Which is not so much a problem as long as the base systems are still relatively similar. But since you specifically asked about long-term preservation, like 15 years, I still believe the form of packaging doesn't really solve that issue.
https://elecpay.in/tneb/ https://birthdaywishes.onl/ https://myip.kim/

Why did GOG make their folder "GOG Games" with a space in them?! Grr! I admit, it is a tiny thing but still.

Yeah, I never use their default location anyway. Everything goes in $HOME/games/some_game. No spaces naturally, all lower case.

I tried getting it to work with "" marks but no, it still faults when it does not read past /GOG.

EDIT: Guess I can tell that I got my games working by removing all spaces. Some distros do not like spaces in path names, be it folders or file names with them in.

Is there somewhere a list of games which may (at least for some people) work under Linux without them having an officially supported Linux version?

I know there is a list here https://www.gog.com/forum/general/adamhms_linux_wine_wrappers_news_faq_discussion/post3 but this looks rather like a "sure to run" list and its rather short compared to the number of games on GOG now. The link doesnt work for me. It redirects to https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us instead.


Edit: And I get the impression that Mint support has been dropped. Where can I find some updated information about GOG vs Linux?

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/the_judas_does_this_run_in_wine_thread_v1173

Official Linux support on GOG.com is minimal.

About the bolded part: Is this a general thing that Nvidia is bad on a Linux gaming machine? Probably due to no open source drivers? What kind of gfx card do I optimally get? My priorities are in this order:
1. Reliability - it should last as long as possible not have a 50% chance to drop dead after 1 year of gaming
2. Compatibility (GOG games mostly)
3. Performance
Thx.
Anybody made a ticket or sth to complain about this? At least they should update the stickied post here...

Yes, exactly. Nvidia has poor integration with Linux graphics stack and tools due to their driver not being upstreamed.

Get Sapphire Pulse Vega 56. It's very good for gaming. If you need higher performance, you can to with Navi cards (Sapphire Pulse / Nitro RX 5700 XT or so), but their situation is less stable now, due them being still recent. It takes time for kernel and Mesa to stabilize that.

No. NVidia is better for gaming overall. Its weak parts (like Wayland support, initrd integration or Optimus technology on notebooks) have nothing to do with gaming.
NVidia provides excellent closed source drivers in time. That should be enough.
Go nVidia. Even 10 year cards are still supported.
Go nVidia. Some (hastily ported) games, like "Divinity: Original Sin", do not work on AMD cards.
As you have already guessed it, go nVidia. :) It provides the most performative cards (like RTX 2080Ti) and quality drivers to boot (in order to provide the exact same level of performance as on Windows™). And if you want the most performance per watt, nVidia also wins here.

Personally I have settled for "GTX 1660Ti". I don't believe in ray-tracing for now (even if if technically works on Linux, I don't know any games that use it).

Simply put, nVidia "Just Works"™ while with AMD you are pretty much obliged to learn how to compile Mesa and LLVM (I don't even know what it is! :D ) from Git repository, to install custom-built beta kernel and, most importantly, how to wait. Navi cards are not supported even now! while some cards like "Radeon VII" are already discontinued (to be manufactured).