I use Playnite. It automatically adds all you games from all famous launchers, lets you add games manually, download the meta data for it and has theme and plugin support.

I do but I got it „on my holiday“ in India

You have to exchange the RDR2 exe with the launcher exe to stay in the same environment. Otherwise it just creates a new environment like you said.

Change the desired settings and then replace the launcher exe with the game’s exe again.

You’re absolutely right. For some reason I had Steam pre-installed in my head, probably bc the SD is the only Linux device I’m using

Shreddit is what I used to clean them all

While that’s absolutely true (and that method should work on other Linux devices too) it’s kind of a hassle when you have to change the exe path multiple times just to install the game and it’s dependencies like dx, visual c etc.

I’d recommend that method only if you’re a purist (and a bit of a masochist :D ) and you want to keep the machine as bloat free as possible at any costs

There are multiple game launchers that are able to run windows games and programs: Lutris, Heroic, Bottles, just to mention some of them. I played around with all of them on my steam deck and found that Heroic works the best for me in terms of reliability and convenience.

You click on „add game“ and a window pops up prompting you to input the game name, where to create the prefix (basically a virtual windows environment), and the path to the executable. If the game isn’t pre-installed you can hit the „run installer first“ button and install the game and any dependencies beforehand and add the executable after the successful installation.

I am currently switching back and forth between Memmy, Mlem and Wefwef (which is getting renamed to Voyager soon). All apps are in active development and have their pros and cons.

I’d probably up the GPU to a 3060 Ti or even 3070 as prices have been pretty low compared to the shortage period.

And for CAD or Blender it’s probably not a bad idea to go with 32 gigs of ram right away. I started with 16 and upgraded it to 32 a few months later.

Color schemes, maybe customisable, would be exactly what I had in mind! Thanks for the heads up!

I believe using the original keyboard is your best option regarding privacy

I use my deck mostly for casual couch gaming, when travelling or at work. My gaming PC is still in good use though and won’t be replaced by the deck.

But to be totally honest, it’s the tinkering that’s most fun for me. Installing non steam games/applications, tweaking and playing around with settings etc.