I primarily use my pc for gaming, and want to avoid upgrading to Windows 11. Beginning the journey of looking into alternatives.
I am ignorant, trying to be less so. I have a hard time understanding what exactly makes a game not work just because of OS.
Flightless Mango used to have some good comparisons, but they’re about four years out-of-date, now. Even then, you’d expect between 10% worse and 5% better on Linux. https://flightlessmango.com/benchmarks/
Forbes article here is from this year; expect between 5% worse and 25% better when running on Linux. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2024/08/21/linux-scores-a-surprising-gaming-victory-against-windows-11/
General experience is that generally there’s no noticeable difference at all; some games that use new features might have bad performance until the new features are implemented. Last game I really had a problem with was Horizon Zero Dawn. Elden Ring had bad performance on launch day, but was fixed the next day I think.
These are solid sources to cite, but for the record I was talking about a Linux native build vs a Windows build running under Proton, not a Windows build running in Windows vs running in Proton. Linux is a more efficient OS and well-optimized builds made for it can really fly.