Let me start by saying I think Linux Mint is one of the top 5 greatest distros of all time. It is an absolutely essential starting point for many people and their work is responsible for much of the user-friendliness you see in the world of Linux today. It is stable, has a nice aesthetic, “just works”, and doesn’t make you update constantly.
These things are great but they are the very things that make Linux Mint unsuited for online gaming. Is this a bad thing? No!! It’s just not a distro made for gaming purposes. It’s like showing up to a monster truck drag race in a Ferrari. I cannot count on my two hands how many times I have provided support to a user, to find their issue was outdated libraries due to using Linux Mint. It happens all the time. Go look at any game on ProtonDB that is currently working, and you’ll find 1-2 “not working” reports and they are always on either Debian on Mint.
I understand why we see it so often, because Linux Mint is awesome and users want to play their games on it. But if I suggested Hell Let Loose to a friend using Linux Mint right now, the first distro suggested for gaming in our FAQ, he wouldn’t be able to play because of his choice of distro. Making rolling distros look like a fortress in 2023 and suggesting Mint for gaming will only set new Linux users up for disappointment.
Used Linux Mint Debian Edition for 3 years and had a problem to start one AAA game out of maybe 10.
It was after the release of Steelrising, which relies on a updated nvidia graphics driver for DLSS. It was the first DLSS game for me, I think.
Linux Mint Debian Edition shipped driver 470 and Kernel 5.1 back then and I went lengths to get nvidia driver 525 and Kernel 6.X. After that, it worked fine.
Other issues with a slightly oldschoold podman Version 3.3 led me to switch to Fedora.
I really hate Ubuntu and Debian distros in general. If you want to have newer software, you need to add a PPA/mirror, which could end up in mixed libraries, and other nightmares.