Thanks so much for the info, both of you!
I do in fact have Nvidia... bummer! I'm not too worried about AntiCheats that don't support Linux since that mostly seems to be for PvP-heavy games, which are not usually a thing I'm into. Ark & Rust were about the only games like that I liked, & I played on PvE servers. But I do think some MMOs use AntiCheats, right? Though for sure not GW2 or FFXIV, which are my current obsessions.
My current plan is, since support for Windows 10 is being dropped in October 2025, maybe I'll upgrade to Windows 11 so I can keep getting security updates, and then dual-boot to Linux, but have Linux as the main. Like 90% of the time I'll be in Linux Mint (or whichever one I pick), and then just swap over to Windows briefly if/when I need to.
The VM plan sounded really awesome, but I think the nVidia fix looks beyond my ability. I'm someone who can't code & only knows like 3 DOS commands, but can set up a Minecraft modpack (without changing any recipes) & upload the files to servers others run, or otherwise handle setting up mods for games in general. I'm saying all that to try and give some idea of my expertise or lack thereof. I'd consider myself a low-end power user, maybe? So given that, does this plan sound reasonable, re the dual booting & mostly swapping to Linux Mint (or whatever distro)?
Oh wow, nice! I especially appreciate the ProtonDB link-- I'd known about Proton, but not ProtonDB. :) And that's awesome, re GW2 especially!
I'm thinking I'm going to try Pop!OS... I was reading reviews etc. of various gaming/newbie Linux stuff on [https://itsfoss.com/](It's Foss) and they're a big fan, and Pop seems pretty readymade for gaming stuff. I plan to put it on a flash drive & test it before dual booting to it, and if I'm not a fan, Linux Mint it is! I tried that once before, years ago.