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Isn't Proxmox intended for servers whose only use is to run VMs? Why not go for a traditional desktop distro like Mint and run KVM, QEMU, or VirtualBox on it?
Anyway, I have heard something like this, but it probably depends on the anti-cheat. Some might run in kernel mode to deliberately detect VMs. Others won't care if you use a VM.
Can't speak to anti-cheat, but I've run a Windows 11 VM with GPU passthrough on Proxmox. I got basically identical performance from the hardware, considering the reduced ram/cpu count in the VM. USB port passthrough was glitchy though. I didn't spend too much time messing with it but it definitely was functional. Battlenet (World of Warcraft, Overwatch, etc...) worked fine. I don't recall any game that didn't run but, again, I didn't do too much.
Surprised that nobody yelled Proton yet? Lots of Windows games running pretty good, some close to native, some even better on Linux through Proton. But here is the thing you mentioned which could be a problem: anti cheat. It works on Linux but depends on the developer to enable it. Some major games simply does not support it. You can check them here: https://areweanticheatyet.com/ , for general compability check https://protondb.com , even non Steam games can run through Lutris with little to no hassle. Proxmox with GPU passthrough seems like a big clunky overhead in terms of gaming but maybe you got that game that will never run on Linux.
Thanks for the information.
However, I'm not concern about Linux, Windows, or Proton. I'm fine on any platfrom that I can game on.
I'm concern about anti-cheat within virtualized environmnet due to my unpopular setup: a Homelab running services like PiHole and a PC for daily and gamming need all roll into one machine. The concept behind is configuration and data isolation (and fun).
I use Steam + Proton in an LXC so I can share the graphics card among several other containers. It works quite well with streaming once I got it set up.
Video card passthrough can be a real struggle. If you are using Intel/Nvidia it will be easier though
I'm in the planning stages of a build that will be essentially this, a proxmox build that'll include my NAS with several hard drives (running in one VM), all my docker containers (another VM) and Linux and Windows vms with passthrough that I can spin up temporarily for games.
I think I can get the Windows VM in a place where I can also restart the whole machine and boot in natively, as a fallback for games with aggressive anti cheats that won't allow VMs, which I don't think I'll be playing much of anyway.
To answer your question, it really would be best to check game by game if the anti cheat allows VMs.
That's kind of my plan too, without the native boot. I tried dual boot and found myself using Windows more than I should.
I'm planning to have the Windows VM running the game and I use Parsec/Moonlight from a Linux VM to game on.
I did looked online about EAC and BattleEye, both are popular and not that VM friendly, but I heard some say it's fine. Information conflicts and I don't want to test the water and got myself banned. Elite and Starfield doesn't know if they support VM or not.
I don't think Proxmox is supposed to be a daily driver, but I think this would work, except for maybe Anti-Cheat as you mentioned.
Marauders is the only game that I have had an issue with. I'm not a prolific gamer but everything else I have tried has been fine.