Nobara is pretty good for a "just works" gaming-centric distro. The issue that you're coming across is plain and simple, PopOS is severly outdated. Most of System76's dev team are likely working on COSMIC.

If you want the absolute most, contiuously up-to-date packages, then I can't recommend anything other than Arch. I've used it as my daily driver for a little over 2 years now and I've always come crawling back if I try something else. Gaming on it isn't a hassle, most of the time it just works, not to be a stereotypical Arch user but do read the Wiki. Arch was also my first ever distro, a friend got me into it.

If Arch is a bit dawnting for you then something Arch-based is just as good, from experience I recommend EndeavourOS. Do not use Manjaro.

The kind of game-specific fixes that get added to GPU drivers on Windows are typically added to Proton, not the Linux GPU drivers. Waiting a week for the Nvidia driver so you can be sure it won't break your system is only a plus in this instance.

Nobara Linux. It's a fedora derivative that's focused for gaming, with regular updates. It even comes with all the important things like Steam and Feral Gamemode installed. Make sure to download the Nvidia version if you have an Nvidia GPU.

SteamOS is based on arch linux, and I joke that when someone merge a pull request on github, Arch starts to build their package.

EndevourOS is basically arch linux for beginners, they have their own repositories but just for some tools, just cool stuff.

About Manjaro I would recommend to not use it, not because of the reasons' ppl common raise, for me, it was actually good when I used it, but they try to be "stable" as PopOS in their default branch, so you will never get the latest stuff.

I don't like Nobara because it is based on Fedora, a semi-rolling-release distro, so some packages don't update regularly and wait until next release, they probably update everything related to graphics and games but I do not only play games on my machine, I never used Nobara tho.

Said that, I play a lot more than I should, and I use EndevourOS.

Here's my takes:

• Ubuntu and derivatives are just FINE
• Fedora derivatives have been problematic since F38 for various reasons
• Arch is very good, has an immense of knowledge in their docs and forums, but requires you be already adept to keep it rolling smoothly
• Endeavor is supposed to be an easier to manage Arch experience, but I'm not sure you'll be escaping any Nvidia issues.

So just to put this out there. https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/

Universal Blue has some really good ideas. I really think immutable and atomic updating linux distros are the future. Most applications have flatpaks available.

Bazzite has alot of gamer forward features, has Nvidia specific builds, and even supports a SteamDeck replacement version of their OCI images.

Even though people may not like Fedora, I think universal Blue solves a lot of the Fedora style problems people experience.

There are also BlendOS and VanillaOS but I haven't tried them with NVIDIA GPUs.

If you need bleeding edge gaming support, is Arch (using Arch-install)or an Arch based distro like Garuda. I believe OpenSUSE Tumbleweed could also be alternative to Arch.

The next best thing is a Fedora based distro like Nobara.

In any case, use KDE Plasma + Wayland.

Anything else is just old software.

I use Endevour OS, and have no problems with Nvidia drivers, but since its an arch based distro its not as easy or stable as debian based distros

Garuda

I've had good luck with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, but I usually recommend Linux Mint because it's so much more common so it's probably easier to get help. So that's my recommendation, check out Linux Mint.

Games that just come out could be an issue regardless of distro. Sometimes Wine/Proton needs to fix a few things… no distro is going to help, in that regard. I suppose a more regularly updated distro COULD help with getting updates faster… but it’s usually nothing you cannot already solve with Pop. ProtonUp-QT is a great tool to help get you the latest Proton versions, including the Eggroll fork. It’s available as a Flatpak, so it’ll work on most modern distros (including Pop).

If you must switch to a more regularly updated distro, you have a couple of options. Nobara (based on Fedora) will give you a nice middle ground between your current setup and Arch. Speaking of which, Arch is a great distribution, with fantastic documentation. That being said, it IS NOT new user friendly. It WILL break, and you WILL need to look stuff up. You’re on the literal bleeding edge, of Linux. The Arch forums can also be quite toxic, in comparison to what’s available on both Pop/Ubuntu and Nobara/Fedora. If neither is appealing to you, consider OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. It’s very up to date, but I often find it more stable than Arch.

I recommend Garuda. It's an arch based distro with a focus on gaming. Arch is great for gaming and developing as it's bleeding edge. Base arch is very minimal and needs a lot of packages to be installed and configured before you can game. Garuda has all of that installed and configured when you install the distro.

The only complain I hear people have about Garuda is that they find it too bloated. But I find it easier to uninstall whatever you consider to be bloat, rather than install and configure all the gaming stuff you need. As a bonus, Garuda automatically sets up btrfs snapshots when you install it. So if you break something while uninstalling what you don't want, you can just go to a previous snapshot.

I can’t reccomend arch or arch based enough, it is not that hard, you will become somewhat adept in the terminal in the process. Arch wiki is very extensive and the community is huge, package management is a breeze.

ive been using Rhino Linux and have been very happy with it!

Gentoo. It will be the last distro you hop to. Because it's whatever you want it to be. Don't be afraid. It even has a special command and portage repo to install all the support files and ancient libraries from 2002 your old games need in one shot.

You can snag a binary kernel, browser and some compilers now too if you don't want to deal with that. It's not much more difficult than Arch nowadays.