Motherboard: MSI P55-CD53 (MS-7586)

Socket Type: 1156 LGA

Processor: Intel Core i7-870 @ 2.93GHz (8 CPUs)

RAM: 8192MB DDR3 PC3-12800 (800 MHz)

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Windforce 6GB (GDDR5)

HDD: Hitachi HUS724030ALE641 (2TB, 20Gb free)

I make frequent use of emulators and ROM modification programs. Emulators include things like Bizhawk, Dolphin, Citra, DeSmuME, Duckstation, PCSX2, Hourglass, Fceux, Mupen64, MAME, Nestopia, PPSSPP, Project64, RPCS3, Satourne, Vita3K, np2fmgen, and Snes9x. Modding programs include many pokemon-specific romhacking third party programs and multi-game randomizers.

I also frequently play obscure, third party foreign games such as japanese doujin games (which require Japanese locale to play on windows) and many RPG maker games.

I also frequently play flash and HTML-based browser games using either firefox or a local flash installation, usually using Flashpoint, but sometimes dependent on just opening raw flash.

I also like to play a lot of older games that use software such as DX9 that causes problems on newer operating systems. Ancient shit like Mechwarrior 4 Mercs, the original AOE2, earlier Touhou games, those ancient WildTangent games that run at a native 640x480, the original Fallouts, basically anything that came with a CD, and DOS games like Princess Maker 2.

Of course, I also occasionally play 2010s and more modern games (the most recent game I’ve played is Monster Hunter World), but that’s more rare and I don’t expect that to pose much of a problem with either OS. Think things like all the bethesda games up to Fallout 4, COD WAW and Black Ops, Medieval 2 Total War, any of the Souls games, etc.

So it’s most the more obscure and older games I’m worried about. I know win10 requires patches for many DX9 games, and I have no idea how well it plays with anything older than that. I have no idea how well emulators in general work on linux, and no idea how hard running foreign games will be, or even if my hardware is supported by linux in the first place.

I should note two extra confounding factors: The first is that I lack much hard dive space. If I’m to switch to Linux, I would need to get a second hard drive and figure out how to put all my personal files onto the new partitioned linux drive. Whereas with Win10 I would just need to upgrade the OS. And with either case, I would need to upgrade my RAM significantly, as most of the applications I use have started consuming all of my RAM. Stellaris has become virtually unplayable with recent updates unless I kill 90% of my processes before running it because it eats like 6-7 gigs.

The second factor is that many of these are…less than legitimately obtained, and I don’t know if those will work on Linux, or how well they do.

So considering all of this: I want whichever system is going to let me still use most of my games the easiest. I understand there’s a learning curve with Linux, but I’m very willing to learn because I just have a seething hatred of Windows 10/11 and am only moving on because I’m being forced to. So as long as it’s possible and does what I want, I’d like to try.