I’m playing quite a wide variety of titles - from recent AAA on the Steam Deck to really old titles that have never even been on Steam. Plus emulators for all sorts of systems - from really old up to things like GameCube/Wii or even Switch.

I can’t speak to discrete cards, but it’s been pretty reliable for me.

I’m curious as to if your friends are using distros with older Mesa/kernels? That might explain some of the disparity.