I'm not a gamer but I do have two much-loved Thinkpads with built-in Nvidia GPUs I can't upgrade: a W520 with a Quadro 1000, and a T420 with an NVS 4200M.
Both need the driver version 390 at the latest -- no later driver supports these GPUs -- and that driver won't build on any kernel later than version 6.5. The GPUs are unsupported in Debian 12 (let alone 13) and from Ubuntu 24.04 or later.
This means Debian can't even enable a Displayport external screen, since the Displayport is connected to the Nvidia GPU.
Some Ubuntu variants can bring up the GPU and Displayport but I suspect without acceleration.
What's interesting to me is that I've found that since the beta of Pop OS 24.04, whose COSMIC desktop is Wayland–only, the GPUs are supported and work using FOSS drivers: the external screen works fine, it identifies both GPUs, I can choose to offload acceleration to the Nvidia chip.
It's not very stable on the W520 but it seems very solid on the T420 so far.
So, not a gamer, but in case this helps anyone else, I'm just putting it out there.
lproven•1mo ago
I'm not a gamer but I do have two much-loved Thinkpads with built-in Nvidia GPUs I can't upgrade: a W520 with a Quadro 1000, and a T420 with an NVS 4200M.
Both need the driver version 390 at the latest -- no later driver supports these GPUs -- and that driver won't build on any kernel later than version 6.5. The GPUs are unsupported in Debian 12 (let alone 13) and from Ubuntu 24.04 or later.
This means Debian can't even enable a Displayport external screen, since the Displayport is connected to the Nvidia GPU.
Some Ubuntu variants can bring up the GPU and Displayport but I suspect without acceleration.
What's interesting to me is that I've found that since the beta of Pop OS 24.04, whose COSMIC desktop is Wayland–only, the GPUs are supported and work using FOSS drivers: the external screen works fine, it identifies both GPUs, I can choose to offload acceleration to the Nvidia chip.
It's not very stable on the W520 but it seems very solid on the T420 so far.
So, not a gamer, but in case this helps anyone else, I'm just putting it out there.