Have you considered/tried streaming games from your primary desktop PC? Obviously very dependent on your situation’s specifics, but that’s one of the things I do with the Linux htpc I have set up.

And then you wouldn’t have to worry about games and NAS stuff competing for system resources.

I’d personally go the hypervisor route (I’m using proxmox, truenas, and an *arr stack on my NAS). It keeps things compartmentalized (especially network configurations) and usually keeps me from breaking everything at the same time.

Just jump in the deep end and install NixOS. 😉

I was seduced by the possibility of permanent “new computer smell” and it is 100% worth the fiddling: https://grahamc.com/blog/erase-your-darlings/