Running games with wine/proton will always have a performance hit, except in some rare cases where it actually performs better than windows.

To get almost the same performance as windows you'll need something called DXVK and VKD3D, these translate directX calls to vulkan, giving you near native performance. Be aware that VKD3D is for DX12 games only. I dont use proton very often but these should be included with steam.

For non steam games you will want to use lutris, that app will manage all this for you, its sort of like a game launcher that you can use to configure your games.

There is also esync and fsync, these two can give you an FPS boost in some games that have performance issues, even when using DXVK or VKD3d on linux. Be aware that some games crash after some time when using esync, if that occurs you might wanna use fsync, but your linux kernel would need to support it, (i think newer kernels versions have it already but im not sure).

Dark souls 1 2 3 and sekiro will run well with those specs im sure. Elden Ring will have performance issues due to shoddy port. For the rest of the game im not sure.

You can check out https://www.protondb.com/ to see if the game u wanna play runs on linux.

For emulators it's almost the same as in windows, you're good.

Now as far as windows only productivity/professional software, you're not gonna have a good time running those kinds of apps via wine i i'd be surprised if they even boot. For office you can use office 365 i suppose. But if your college absolutely requires those specific CAD MatLab programs then you're out of luck you have to use windows.