Maybe sometimes, but it's more the naming scheme between packages that tends to be the bigger spanner in the works.

SDL_2.11 vs SDL211 vs SDL_QUIXOTIC.

I don't know the answer to your question, but I used Mint for a few years (gave up on MS after Win7) but have had some issues with the last couple releases. I switched to Pop_OS instead and it has done far better with the Nvidia build (there are 2 others that are not Nvidia specific). It has done much better (for me) for gaming and having the appropriate drivers at install. Mint comes with older drivers (kernel driver too) but may be fine for you since you say you have an older cpu. Good luck and welcome to Linux.

The more logical approach would be to keep windows 10 for gaming offline and use a usb linux flavor with save data functionale for online needs. Net stuff is easy peasy on linux and windows does gaming. Problem solved.

Just remember to set linux time and date to match the way windows functions, else your os of windows will get messed up.

Edit: this...
https://www.maketecheasier.com/fix-windows-linux-show-different-times/

No idea about the specific pad, but I have a couple of pads with dinput/xinput switch (although it is done by holding down pair of buttons for 5 sec, not a physical switch) and they work fine in both modes. However they are simple digital only, no analogue axes, no haptics nor rumble.

On AMD gpu, you can use an utility called CoreCtrl, which allows undervolting of your gpu the same way you can do in the windows radeon suite, with some exceptions like you can't set memory timings on hbm2 GPUs afaik etc. It's just core & memory voltages, clocks, fan speeds/curves, tdp, zero-rpm threshold and general behavior (like performance mode, powersaving, on demand, etc). It needs a config tweak to show these advanced settings though. It has some settings for CPUs too but very basic.
For framelimiting, all forms of scaling, fsr1, sharpening, etc I use Gamescope. Adaptive sync / freesync is taken care of by the compositors of your desktop environment of choice. I use KDE + Wayland since last year. There is also Mangohud, Polychromatic (for Razer products), some util to set/monitor system fans and temps, and I dunno what else.

I tend to run Win games through ProtonGE via Steam, with optional winetricks/protontricks tweaks if needed. I'm not using Mint but Arch, but linux is linux in the end anyway.

Wow! The mystery is solved, I've been wondering maybe for years why sometimes my Windows 11 clock has been several hours wrong, and that's probably it (ie. I've booted to Linux instead, it changed the time (system clock) to its liking, and after I boot to Windows, the time is wrong).

I think it normally fixed itself if I waited long enough in Windows, or then I go to Windows time settings as tell it to sync NTP time right away. I always wondered why Windows doesn't sync NTP right after you boot into Windows. On Linux the time was always ok, I presume Linux always synced the time right away with NTP when you logged in.

Anyway, I have to try the suggestion on that page, maybe it fixes that time issue for good.

EDIT: And yeah, I always propose to dual-boot Windows and Linux if possible, as then you always have the option to go to Windows if some game is too hard to get work on Linux side. You never know beforehand, sometimes getting some Windows game to work on Linux (Mint) is easy peasy, sometimes I just can't figure it out.

I had trouble with a generic joypad which can use both Dinput and Xinput using Mint.
Thankfully this specific generic joypad had a switch to alter between both modes and Mint recognized only Dinput, which is not a problem for me. I couldn't solve it using default Linux Mint repositories, but since I did not needed Xinput, this was fine in my case as I was playing emulators which could survive with Dinput mode only.

Also heard about people having trouble with Mint and Nvidia closed source drivers, Im not a Nvidia user though, so can't talk anything about this.

My experience with Mint tells me its a good 'Generic To All Uses Distro'. It manages to do everything you need well as a non professional home user. But some very specific use cases will give you trouble. Only way to know if it will suit you is using it daily for a while.

Try it. Since its free you will only lose one thing: Time.
But you might learn so much that its worth it.
It was for me.

You might enjoy and learn so much that it might become a little step for you to use other, more complex distros later.

- Framerate Limiter - MangoHud / Gamescope
Set "fps_limit=[frames]" for "MANGOHUD_CONFIG" (environment variable) if you use MangoHud.
https://github.com/flightlessmango/MangoHud
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Gamescope
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/gamescope

- XInput Emulator - SC Controller
Download AppImage file from releases and grant it permission to execute from "Properties".
https://github.com/kozec/sc-controller
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/fckm6h/guide_for_setting_up_xinput_emulator/

- Undervolting GPU - CoreCtrl / GreenWithEnvy (Nvidia)
https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/oa4o4o/undervolting_in_linux/
https://gitlab.com/corectrl/corectrl
https://gitlab.com/leinardi/gwe

- Controller Calibration - jstest-gtk
It looks like your controller is supported on Linux. Check the link for AskUbuntu.
https://askubuntu.com/questions/32031/how-do-i-configure-a-joystick-or-gamepad
https://github.com/Grumbel/jstest-gtk

I've only used MangoHud and gamescope before. I found the rest of them after searching online. Check them out and let us know how it went. :-)

I also recommend using Lutris or Heroic Games Launcher to install, manage and play your GOG games on Linux.
https://lutris.net
https://heroicgameslauncher.com

Congrats on joining Linux for the first time :)

However, having been through the same road you did, I would advise you to either skip Linux Mint entirely, or only install it temporarily, to get comfortable with Linux overall, and then switch to another distro.

Linux Mint is an okay distribution, with many newbie-friendly tools, but I personally have many critiques against it:

-Depending on Mint's "user-friendly" tools won't allow you to truly know how Linux works. You can get by with only using graphical interfaces, but using the Terminal is an inevitability, which I'm sure you'll end up liking (as I did).
-Mint's Desktop Environment, Cinnamon, is based on a very old fork of GNOME, which is known for being very unoptimized and buggy, affecting performance.
-Mint is based on a very old Ubuntu base, and its collection of installable packages are VERY old. Mint is currently using the 5.15 kernel, which is from 2021. We are now currently in kernel version 6.9, nearly three years ahead of Mint. The performance improvements we have gained since then are huge, and Mint simply isn't able to compete in terms of gaming performance. It will be significantly worse at running games compared to Windows, which will be extremely disappointing for someone just coming from Windows.

My advice would be to instead use either Fedora or OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. They have fresh packages (a type of package releases called Rolling Release), will have infinitely better performance, look great, feel great to use, while still being easy enough to use. They won't have as many dedicated newbie-friendly tools, but they will still have some. Since you came from Windows, you might want to use the KDE Plasma desktop. It's the closest to Windows (and even looks better than it in my opinion).

Good luck on your journey! :)

How do you make two Linux users fight each other to the death?

- You don't have to. They will instantly start a distro fight.

Glad I could help. Linux change is better to change, but either gets the correct time. The clock is rather important over time, to prevent crashes and the like. If it is wrong, Windows becomes unstable.

It would help if Windows always synced NTP time ASAP after a reboot, but it doesn't seem to.

I thought one can force that by setting the "Windows Time" service startup type to "Automatic", but either that setting is reverted back or doesn't just always guarantee the "Internet time" is synced at Windows start. The correct time comes instantly if you sync the "internet time" manually.

Anyway, if changing that setting on the Linux side fixes it, I'm good.

Thanks for the chuckle, that was pretty good.

That's coming from a Linux user (Zorin OS).

I was going to joke saying:

"Arch Linux still better." - and leave at that.

But then I got afraid to start a real Linux Distro war around here. lol

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, good to know there are some option to try out.
Just need to figure out what works best.

I don't get it. I did as suggested, and it caused my clock on Linux to be wrong, as if now it wasn't taking the timezone into account or something, several hours wrong. Then when I reverted back from that and synced time with NTP, the time was correct again.

Also after I had applied that "fix", timedatectl returned some warning that the setting that I had just applied was negative and I should really consider changing it (I don't recall the exact warning and right now I am not on Linux).

So yeah, I reverted back from that setting, and yes indeedy, Windows time is always now several hours wrong when I boot to Windows after using Linux Mint on the same system. The workaround is to "Adjust date and time" => "Sync now" in Windows, then I get the correct time back, but I have to do that every time when I boot to Windows, if I've used Linux on the earlier boot. There would be no problem if Windows was sane and did that sync itself in every boot, but it doesn't seem to do that, have to do the sync manually... From the past I recall it would fix itself in Windows if you wait long enough, apparently when Windows finally decides to resync its internet time, but it sometimes feels it takes 10 minutes or so before that happens.

I have to look into those instructions again, it also occurred to me did the instructions expect that I am e.g. using a certain kind of NTP service, as in Linux I think there are several different options to choose from, like ntpd, timesyncd and chronyd. I presume ntpd is on its way out on newer Linuxes, on Ubuntu variants timesyncd is the most commonly used nowadays, and on RHEL-family chronyd. No idea about Arch, SUSE and such...