Recent testing revealed that Arch Linux, Pop!_OS, and even Nobara Linux, which is maintained by a single developer, all outstripped Windows for the performance crown on Windows-native games. The testing was run at the high-end of quality settings, and Valve's Proton was used to run Windows games on Linux.
Real question- I have a steam deck and am incredibly pleased with the playability. I also have a desktop with a newer nvidia card. Does Linux have support for DLSS yet? It make a huge difference in oerformance and honestly it’s the only thing holding me back
That depends which DLSS. In my testing DLSS 1 and 2 work fine in games that I tried, with recent Proton enabling it as well as ray tracing shouldnt require extra steps anymore (it was experimental and opt-in using environment variables). DLSS 3 with frame generation is known as no go yet and it’s unfortunately on NVIDIA to provide support for it as it’s very much locked down guarded proprietary stuff.
It should support DLSS unless you have an older video card, which the drivers don’t work well with. I heard the newer Nvidia cards work better though. Of course, is all up to you whether you like it or not, so just try out Linux and see. If you don’t like it just reinstall Windows. Make a recovery Windows USB beforehand though, makes it easier to reinstall.
Linux and Nvidia don’t mix well, at least not until Nvidia’s official open source kernel module has been upstreamed to the Linux kernel which will take years.
Breakages, workarounds for breakages, etc. are common occurrences, especially when you want to use a modern desktop using Wayland.