This thing has trouble running anything made past like 2012 and the newer emulators out there totally bust it. I tried recently running citra and it could barely hit 30%. Would switching over to linux lighten the load on the cpu and free it up so I could run more demanding games?
Also how is linux for emulation and gaming in general?
linux can make the desktop faster and more usable, it can slightly speed up some tasks/games, but it can’t do miracles.
your machine is ok for daily use and games until 2018ish, but emulating modern consoles is actually a relatively heavy task.
you can try it directly on an usb drive and maybe linux will be better, but i doubt it will make it significantly more playable. some light overclocking might help a bit more.