[GUIDE] Want To Game on Mint 20? Start Here!

[Neigdoig]

For those unaware, I'm a gamer myself who uses this distro for almost everything I do. I thought it'd be only fair to do a tutorial of what I do after a fresh install of LM 20 Cinnamon:
1. I always do

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sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade -y

to update the software repositories, and upgrade my system. I will reboot once the upgrade is complete.

2. I will then start the Driver Manager (since I have an NVIDIA card), and install the proprietary graphics drivers. I'd recommend 470 drivers to start, and I wouldn't even touch the newer ones. However, should you decide to upgrade your Graphics Drivers, but the monitor resolution isn't right, you should check here (viewtopic.php?f=59&t=381736), as I had this issue too.

3. I'll head over to https://christitus.com/ultimate-linux-gaming-guide/ to follow Chris's guide on doing everything needed for setting up, since I won't list the steps here. I'd take all day.

4. I will then install Steam, and that takes a bit... however, I can also get ProtonUp-Qt, and get GE-Proton7-26, the latest version available for 470 drivers. That will be downloaded under /home/$USER/.steam/debian-installation/compatibilitytools.d. That way, Steam will recognize it, and allow me to play Windows games on Linux.

5. I'll head to the System Settings, and under Appearance, select Effects. I turn all that stuff off, for the compositor can also degrade performance a bit.

6. I'll then do

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sudo nano etc/default/grub

and then add under

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GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=

I will put

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GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="rhgb quiet nvidia-drm.modeset=1 mitigations=off"

to increase performance for my machine, and to attempt to load in the NVIDIA modules a bit earlier. Afterwords, I will do

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sudo update-grub

and then reboot.

7. In some cases, I'll do

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xed admin:///etc/modules

and then add

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nvidia
nvidia-drm
nvidia-modeset

to load that in a bit faster. Just in case (although not needed) I will then do

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sudo update-initramfs -u

and reboot.

And that should be it for me. Any steps I missed will be edited into this first post on this thread as "Optional Steps".

[SMG]

2. I will then start the Driver Manager (since I have an NVIDIA card), and install the proprietary graphics drivers (I'd recommend 470 drivers to start, and I wouldn't even touch the newer ones unless you know how to set Wayland up properly for NVIDIA GPUs)

Linux Mint does not support using Wayland. Current versions of Linux Mint only support using X Server.