it has transpired that
- time has passed
- i got a much newer, less messed up GPU
and now all the games i would ever play run smoothly and beautifully on linux, rather than shittily and/or crashily.
check out Heroic Launcher, i guess; it wraps any games you have from the GoG store and the epic games store and will run them with any one of a whole bunch of wine/proton adapters. so far everything works beautifully either there or through steam (which is of course also using proton). i'm increasingly convinced that the advent of the Steam Deck caused a sea change in modern windows-to-linux games compat technology. path of exile, cyber punk, even mtg arena all run buttery smooth now 