I have Linux Mint on a PC and wondering if games I get from GOG will work on there? It looks like they all just come with Windows installers. I could get them working with Steam, but I'm not buying games that aren't DRM-free.

I'm mostly playing older games like Diablo, Oblivion, Skyrim, but there are a few newer games I wanted to buy like BG3 which is on sale now.

The single most important thing is that your GPU is well supported by your kernel. nVidia is hit or miss, Intel and AMD usually fare way better.

Once that is sorted, you can either install Wine / Proton yourself or install a Launcher like Lutris or Heroic to do it for you, as well as manage the installation of games. I use Heroic. You need to install at least one Wine / Proton version through its Wine Manager, then you can start installing and playing.

Depending on your setup things may be a little more complex (like running Heroic inside Flatpak), but the general workflow boils down to that. So yes, even despite the Windows-only installers of most games, they (nearly all, anyway) run just fine on Linux. :)

Oh, and there is ProtonDB (https://www.protondb.com/) where you can check for possible problems and workarounds that Heropic can't handle automatically, like using a specific Wine version, etc..

That's the same thing that Steam does, BTW.

Most games run fine on Linux; I'd say you've got over a 95% chance that a game will work. Linux Mint isn’t the best for gaming with GoG titles, but you should be fine as long as you use Heroic, Lutris, or another Linux game launcher.

Hardware-wise, Linux Mint is pretty easy. In my opinion, Nvidia graphics cards can work well, but the proprietary drivers on Linux aren’t always super reliable. AMD and Intel tend to be a bit better in terms of stability and sometimes performance.

For example, I once installed around 50 GoG games on an old Linux Mint using the GoG offline installer and Lutris, and I got all of them to work, though a few (3) had some issues I had to sort out before I could play them. That doesn't mean all games will work on Linux, though.

Nvidia has improved a lot the last year and they've said its a focus for them to keep doing so. I use an Nvidia card on Linux and I have no problem at all. I've played FFVII Rebirth, Crimson Desert, Resident Evil 9 (though we had to wait an extra day on Linux) and all ran absolustely fine.

If you're doing GOG and it's mostly classics or older stuff like Skyrim, or even something newer like BG3, you'll be smooth sailing so long as your rig is half decent.

Not to say that AMD isn't still the better option though, but if you've an Nvidia card, you'll be fine.

As long as your games are not infected by anti-cheat like most multiplayer games, you should be fine, most of your games should run on Linux but a few games might need some tweaks, other won't work at all, but it's a very small amount of games.