Steam Hardware & Software Survey

Baenwort said:
My question is why do I never get asked to participate in these? I got one long ago but it has been at least 2 years since I was asked last.

is there some setting I mistakenly set?
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I think you are asked once when you first install Steam and it remembers your answer and automatically re-polls and submits your information every time they update it.

I wonder what it does when you log into your Steam account from more than one computer? I have it on both my desktop and my laptop... I wonder if it samples both, pulls the most recent when it is time to assemble a new report, or pulls the one you are logged onto with the most...
 
badcaps said:
As per the steam survey, 46.78% MBP, 20.25% MacBook, 3.44% Mac Mini. The mini hasn't had ATI since 2005, MacBooks haven't for years either, but I believe some MacBooks as well as the Mini have had Intel GMA chips in certain model years. Making a total of 70.47% not counting the margin of error for the aforementioned anomalies, as well as the low end nVidia cards that (at least until recently) have been the default card in the MacPro.

The remaining numbers are 23.18% iMac and 5.41% MacPro, totalling 28.59% of steam-on-mac installs, with a less certain margin of error.

All things considered I think the inclusion of Mac statistics in steam is creating a kind of false statistical boost for nVidia's adoption rate, since aside from the Mac Pro the other Macs are not configurable in the graphics department and were -- I think it's safe to say -- not purchased due to their GPU.
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You can choose to display "PC only", "Mac only", or "Mac & PC" statistics.
 
Hels said:
Wtf - they include programs installed on your computer. :O
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Monkey God said:
Im a little irked they inventory all your software, thats none of their damn business.
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sigh... always people that just don't get opt-in surveys.

It's not mandatory. They ASK you beforehand.

Also, WTH is wrong with seeing your installed apps? Got a porn torrent client installed? It's not like they are reading your email. This isn't google ya know ;)
 
Ruachta said:
Also Winrar in the top 10 :)

Hope a lot of those are licensed, that's a program I've always enjoyed supporting.
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I hope not too many of them are licensed.

Back in 2005 I e-mailed Eugene Roshal about a problem with Winrar. He responded back that although it's a problem that leaves it unable to function as advertised...

He also responded that he had no intention of ever fixing it...

I told him I don't understand why anyone would pay for that...

I certainly didn't, as I couldn't use Winrar as I had planned and have it work for my intended usage...

(FWIW - the recovery records in Winrar do not work as advertised. If your data's partially corrupted, there's a good chance some recovery data is also corrupted. But Winrar cannot detect corrupt recovery records, nor is there any possible option to even manually tell it what to ignore... It renders the recovery system absolutely useless... I tested it, and corrupted a single bit of the data files, and corrupted a bit in the first recovery record, and it was now doomed to never ever be able to fix the corruption... One single bit corrupted, and Winrar now cannot unrar the file, nor can it ever fix the file, regardless of how much extra recovery data you have, as you cannot get Winrar to ignore the first recovery record that's also corrupt...)

Stupid thing is that if Eugene fixed this, it would be an absolutely stellar product.


Oh, on the scanning all software - I've heard this is why Episode 3's been delayed. They're finding it has conflicts with software that the typical user has installed, so they're working on it...
 
I'm surprised not to see more AMD with their cheap dual/tri/quad cores... they own Intel price-wise.

But then again, maybe a bunch of people are playing on Dells...
 
...dual core Intel processors, Windows XP, 2GB RAM...
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Jeez, this is still the most utilized set-up? It was the "standard" and the norm a couple of years ago, always topping the survey, but now?

You'd think people would have moved to quad cores, at least 4GB RAM and Win7 by now. Everything shipping out today is already quads on Win7, and RAM is cheap.
 
Tolyngee said:
Oh, on the scanning all software - I've heard this is why Episode 3's been delayed. They're finding it has conflicts with software that the typical user has installed, so they're working on it...
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They could release it on the original half-life engine for all I care as long as they wrap up the story line.
 
v0rtic3s said:
Jeez, this is still the most utilized set-up? It was the "standard" and the norm a couple of years ago, always topping the survey, but now?

You'd think people would have moved to quad cores, at least 4GB RAM and Win7 by now. Everything shipping out today is already quads on Win7, and RAM is cheap.
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Well, It looks like 28.03% of people HAVE switched to 4 or more cores. (add up 1, 2,and 3 core percentages and subtract from 1)

It also looks like 30.96% of users have 4GB or more ram.

And 42.87% of users have switched to some form of Windows 7 (32bit + 64bit)

So almost a 3rd of all users meet all your specs above. Remember, we are in a recession, and maybe people don't upgrade their computers as often when they don't have jobs :p
 
badcaps said:
As per the steam survey, 46.78% MBP, 20.25% MacBook, 3.44% Mac Mini. The mini hasn't had ATI since 2005, MacBooks haven't for years either, but I believe some MacBooks as well as the Mini have had Intel GMA chips in certain model years. Making a total of 70.47% not counting the margin of error for the aforementioned anomalies, as well as the low end nVidia cards that (at least until recently) have been the default card in the MacPro.

The remaining numbers are 23.18% iMac and 5.41% MacPro, totalling 28.59% of steam-on-mac installs, with a less certain margin of error.

All things considered I think the inclusion of Mac statistics in steam is creating a kind of false statistical boost for nVidia's adoption rate, since aside from the Mac Pro the other Macs are not configurable in the graphics department and were -- I think it's safe to say -- not purchased due to their GPU.
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Shenans... Intel has many on board graphics chips and is the lead seller in the GPU business because of it, but in the survey they only make up 6.22%, since to be honest on board Intel graphics are horrible. On top of that if you take out a full 5% for the Macs, that still leaves Nvidia in the lead with 54%-32%. In addition ATI also offers many on board graphics solutions as well now, so you can't just say its because of Nvidia's on board graphics. So I really don't understand how this statistic is that hard to gather. Nvidia has dominated the discrete card business for years now. ATI only "just" started getting back in the mix for the leader this year. You can't overcome 4+ years of dominance in one year. Give it another year or 2 and you will probably see those number even out some more unless Nvidia comes up with another major killer card.
 
NoOther said:
Shenans... Intel has many on board graphics chips and is the lead seller in the GPU business because of it, but in the survey they only make up 6.22%, since to be honest on board Intel graphics are horrible. On top of that if you take out a full 5% for the Macs, that still leaves Nvidia in the lead with 54%-32%. In addition ATI also offers many on board graphics solutions as well now, so you can't just say its because of Nvidia's on board graphics. So I really don't understand how this statistic is that hard to gather. Nvidia has dominated the discrete card business for years now. ATI only "just" started getting back in the mix for the leader this year. You can't overcome 4+ years of dominance in one year. Give it another year or 2 and you will probably see those number even out some more unless Nvidia comes up with another major killer card.
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Exactly. And if you look at the DX11 only stats, ATI is absolutely dominating. 5700 + 5800 series accounts for 70% of the DX11 GPUs. Nvidia's DX11 share is less than 10%. Granted, DX11 GPUs are only 8.5%, but it looks to be growing at about 0.8% month by month, which is a decent growth rate.
 
The software statistics can't be right....

It shows only windows... yet only 20% have Internet Explorer? Wonder if this is a specific version cause EVERY windows machine has IE. Its hard to believe 80% have vista/win7 AND uninstalled IE. I generally never bother...
 
dandirk said:
The software statistics can't be right....

It shows only windows... yet only 20% have Internet Explorer? Wonder if this is a specific version cause EVERY windows machine has IE. Its hard to believe 80% have vista/win7 AND uninstalled IE. I generally never bother...
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I guessing for "default browser," not "only installed browser," otherwise, I have cromium, FF3 portable, and IE8.
 
kllrnohj said:
Exactly. And if you look at the DX11 only stats, ATI is absolutely dominating. 5700 + 5800 series accounts for 70% of the DX11 GPUs. Nvidia's DX11 share is less than 10%. Granted, DX11 GPUs are only 8.5%, but it looks to be growing at about 0.8% month by month, which is a decent growth rate.
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This could be because ATI has had the DirectX 11 compatible 5xxx series cards on the market for some time now, whereas due to Fermi delays, Nvidias DirectX 11 parts have only been on the market for a short period of time.

I think we'll see Nvidia catch up here given some time for ther DX11 based prodcts to make their way down the price ladder.
 
Burticus said:
I'm surprised not to see more AMD with their cheap dual/tri/quad cores... they own Intel price-wise.

But then again, maybe a bunch of people are playing on Dells...
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A middle of the road Dell and a $150-200 vid card upgrade is about all you need to play with decently high settings these days. Actually, it has been that way for several years now.
 
most of my customers prefer XP over Vista (heck i hate vista as it takes 2 hrs to do all the updates if it does not have SP1 installed and there the driver to install time can some times suck due to system restore F around thrashing the HDD) fast fix Turn superfetch off

system restore is best off Only when doing an fresh install (turn back on once updates are all on and printer drivers installed {especially HP printers} turning system restore off on an working system and then an update fails = system need reload as you have no role back that vista does Very well normally)

vista has only been out for 3-4 years? so most will still have XP as a lot of users would of asked or seller would of used XP on the system (for me its better as i get XP for next to nothing where as Vista and Win7 costs me £70 that norm puts the price of the system out of what my buyers want but i will norm recommend the Win7 due to its security) over Vista unless they got it from PCworld, most house holds do not have money to just burn when the next best thing comes out, norm when the PC fails they Mite replace it (if i come to it norm i fix it not replace it) most will repalce an system maybe after 5-7 years as i am still seeing quite an number of the older Dell and other classic systems that just simply need ram to bring them up to speed (in the last year or so i am only Just getting to see PCI-E and DDR2 systems that are Old that is new systems are going to be DDR2, DDR3 systems norm out side the price range of customers)

Win7 would run very nice on your system Conker

can't give win7 any bad feedback seems to work very well, all we need now is ATI to sort out there drivers so they work more consistently and correct buzzy cards when under Light loads (like scrolling down the page)
 
Zarathustra[H];1036100599 said:
This could be because ATI has had the DirectX 11 compatible 5xxx series cards on the market for some time now, whereas due to Fermi delays, Nvidias DirectX 11 parts have only been on the market for a short period of time.

I think we'll see Nvidia catch up here given some time for ther DX11 based prodcts to make their way down the price ladder.
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ATi for 11 months? nVidia for 6 months?

Uh... they only captured 30%. By that metric of "ATi slowing down," they should be at 50-60% by now...
 
Zarathustra[H];1036099650 said:
Those of us that build or own systems, overclock, upgrade our machines or even open the computer case even once over the life of the computer are an EXTREME minority, even among gamers.
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QFT.
 
Oh my god, look at WinZIP dying away down there! Like half the people have WinRAR now. I remember the days when WinZIP was the big boy in town...but then file sharing got more popular and RARs took over, lol.

uTorrent is really up there too, so we know what gamers are into!
 
Yeah, I think it is retarded they are including software in there now, one of the reasons why I haven't participated in that survey in a long while...
 
Monkey God said:
Im a little irked they inventory all your software, thats none of their damn business.
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They clearly state what information they collect. Don't approve? Don't allow it. It's disabled by default. You have to opt into the hardware survey.
 
Zarathustra[H];1036100599 said:
This could be because ATI has had the DirectX 11 compatible 5xxx series cards on the market for some time now, whereas due to Fermi delays, Nvidias DirectX 11 parts have only been on the market for a short period of time.

I think we'll see Nvidia catch up here given some time for ther DX11 based prodcts to make their way down the price ladder.
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Nvidia has been much slower at introducing DX11 GPUs at lower price points. They only recently got the GTX 460 out for sub-$200 DX11. ATI got the 5750 out almost immediately after the 5850/70, bringing the cost of a DX11 card to $129. Six months after the 5870 was launched, you could buy the 5450 for less than $50.

For anything under $199, Nvidia still depends on their old DX10 lineup even though it has been 5 months since the GTX 480 came out.

Sure, these slower DX11 GPUs can barely run DX9 titles, but mainstream users that buy OEM systems will still pick the system with the "DirectX 11" badge on it over a system with only DirectX 10.
 
Rock&Roll said:
that's because ATI's are all lumped under series names. So 5850's and 5870's all count as the same thing.

Nvidia's are all declared specifically by each model.
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Yes nvidia cards are declared specifically by model. Let's see what one of those models is.

NVIDIA GeForce 8800 :rolleyes:

Now that could only be an 8800Ultra, 8800GTX, 8800GTS 512. 8800GT, 8800GTS 640, 8800GTS 320, or and 8800GS.
 
µTorrent
29.41%


PROOF! Solid proof that all gamers (all being some portion of 30%) are PIRATES!
 
KatalDT said:
µTorrent
29.41%


PROOF! Solid proof that all gamers (all being some portion of 30%) are PIRATES!
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You need it for betas. So 29% of gamers are beta testers. And starcraft used a torrent! (I felt stupid downloading a torrent for a game I payed for. I had that old school "woah" nervousness about it. I felt i'd just stolen for some reason, when normally I don't give a crap.)
 
Truth be told, steam isn't a service for pirating. It's for people who are paying.
 
DeathPrincess said:
You need it for betas. So 29% of gamers are beta testers. And starcraft used a torrent! (I felt stupid downloading a torrent for a game I payed for. I had that old school "woah" nervousness about it. I felt i'd just stolen for some reason, when normally I don't give a crap.)
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I usually download Ubuntu CD's for my linux installs using torrents. (at 3.5MB/s getting a full CD ISO takes just over 3 minutes, rather than the hour and a half it would take using a120k/s traditional download.

I've been using Azureus though. Never played with µTorrent...
 
Parmenides said:
Truth be told, steam isn't a service for pirating. It's for people who are paying.
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Which raises the question, why doesnt Steam use a BT like system. Their model of large game file downloads and throusands of users would be PERFECT for BT...
 
Zarathustra[H];1036102719 said:
Which raises the question, why doesnt Steam use a BT like system. Their model of large game file downloads and throusands of users would be PERFECT for BT...
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And it would probably save them millions on bandwidth...
 
DeathPrincess said:
You need it for betas. So 29% of gamers are beta testers. And starcraft used a torrent! (I felt stupid downloading a torrent for a game I payed for. I had that old school "woah" nervousness about it. I felt i'd just stolen for some reason, when normally I don't give a crap.)
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Starcraft used the "blizzard downloader" which doesn't force you to use the torrent function... you could use the direct "HTTP Download" option, instead.

It doesn't use uTorrent.
 
JimmiG said:
Nvidia has been much slower at introducing DX11 GPUs at lower price points. They only recently got the GTX 460 out for sub-$200 DX11. ATI got the 5750 out almost immediately after the 5850/70, bringing the cost of a DX11 card to $129. Six months after the 5870 was launched, you could buy the 5450 for less than $50.

For anything under $199, Nvidia still depends on their old DX10 lineup even though it has been 5 months since the GTX 480 came out.

Sure, these slower DX11 GPUs can barely run DX9 titles, but mainstream users that buy OEM systems will still pick the system with the "DirectX 11" badge on it over a system with only DirectX 10.
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jeremyshaw said:
ATi Sept --> August 12 months (oops, lol)
nVIdia March --> August 6 months
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Yep :) Timing, too. It's been a full year, and it's also been a half year. nVIdia hasn't captured too much in that time, but they should be on the move, now.
 
Zarathustra[H];1036102719 said:
Which raises the question, why doesnt Steam use a BT like system. Their model of large game file downloads and throusands of users would be PERFECT for BT...
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A chunk of people would probably find another service that has direct downloads. I imagine many game publishers would also be uncomfortable distributing games in such a manner. There is also more control when you're the sole source of a download.

I don't know. It would be interesting to hear what Valve execs would say about that question.
 
Zarathustra[H];1036102719 said:
Which raises the question, why doesnt Steam use a BT like system. Their model of large game file downloads and throusands of users would be PERFECT for BT...
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Because then I would have to turn Steam off every time I wanted to do anything else besides pray game so my internet was not being destroyed by uploading.
 
SixtyWattMan said:
Because then I would have to turn Steam off every time I wanted to do anything else besides pray game so my internet was not being destroyed by uploading.
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I'm sure they could program it in a way that it would not be obtrusive...

For instance, pause uploads during game play, only uploading during idle.

Limit uploads to a very small percentage of upstream bandwidth, so there is no discernable impact to network performance. 500,000 seeders at 0.5k/s = 250MB/s :p

Halt any further uploads once a user gets to a certain share ratio.

Downloads would be faster, Valves bandwidth costs would go own leading to cheaper distributiion costs and thus either more games available, as it is heaper to bring them to market or cheaper games (or both). It would be a Win-Win.

The only people throwing a hissy-fit would be the broadband ISP's, but fuck those douchebags. :rolleyes:
 
bpizzle1 said:
Look at all those torrent clients :rolleyes:....utorrent is nearly at 30%!
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µTorrent
29.41%

BitTorrent
5.28%

Vuze (Azureus)
4.37%

BitComet
2.44%

So assuming people don't have multiple clients installed, that means ~41% of the steam users surveyed have a torrent client installed.
 
PornoSatan said:
µTorrent
29.41%

BitTorrent
5.28%

Vuze (Azureus)
4.37%

BitComet
2.44%

So assuming people don't have multiple clients installed, that means ~41% of the steam users surveyed have a torrent client installed.
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They all dual-boot linux man.
 
I would hate it if Steam went to a torrent system. My speeds are always horrendous on Blizzard's stupid torrent downloader. On Steam I almost always max out my available bandwidth.
 
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