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Steam Update Shows FPS Gamer Stats

Posted by simoniker on from the watch-the-battle-develop dept.

majestik writes "Valve Software today sent out a Half-Life 2 hardware survey via their Steam content delivery app to over 270,000 gamers (and counting!), collecting various hardware and software information about their PC systems to see how they'll measure up to the forthcoming FPS. Lotsa interesting data to check out, if you ever wanted to know what kind of systems today's FPS gamers use. And yes, if you're wondering, right now Intel takes 50.02% of the CPU market, leaving AMD with 49.98%." The stats are updated in real-time, and it seems this update has again stressed the Steam servers, with a message noting "the Steam network has been overloaded, causing many Steam users to be unable to login", though the effect is reportedly diminishing.

13 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. AMD vs Intel by Ethon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Wow...I didnt figure that the margin between Intel/AMD was so close...I always have just assumed that as far as gaming went, AMD had a significant lead. Learn something new every day I suppose :)

  2. This violates my 2nd amendment rights! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    A survey? This is none of their business! Pretty soon, they'll register us, and then they will take away our weapons.

    They can have my unlimited gaussgun and Mp5 grenade launcher when they pry the joystick from my cold dead fingers.

  3. Heh, interesting by jayhawk88 · · Score: 5, Funny

    One hard-core Cyrix user out there.

    Also, some fool is trying to run half life at 96 pixels?

    And finally, nice to see all those Microsoft employees beta-testing XP SP2 are hard at work...

    1. Re:Heh, interesting by moonbender · · Score: 3, Informative

      With a vendor string "CyrixInstead" - hilarious! I always thought "AuthenticAMD" was a nice parody of Intel's "GenuineIntel".

      Not so smart: Where do people with 256 MB RAM fit in, "128 Mb to 256 Mb" or "256 Mb to 512 Mb"...? The numbers make me guess it's the former. Same goes for CPU speed.

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      Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
  4. Hold on a sec by Proud+like+a+god · · Score: 5, Funny

    Something's odd. In Other Settings (at the bottom of the article!) there's this: RDTSC 283,171 100.02 %

  5. Er... by Anonymous+Cow+herd · · Score: 4, Funny

    Other Settings
    RDTSC 283,171 100.02%

    I wonder how they got that :-)

    --
    Ita erat quando hic adveni.
  6. And the other winner: Nvidia by Vaevictis666 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    47.34% total for NVidia cards,
    41.17% Unknown,
    10.30% total Radeons,
    1.18% Intel.

    It's possible (though unlikely) that all the unknowns were ATI cards, but I think this is a clear win for NVidia.

    OTOH, the most popular card is a GF4MX, which is actually a less capable card than my poor dead GF2TI, which didn't even make it on the list :P

  7. Re:AMD the winner by Farmer+Jimbo · · Score: 4, Informative

    The survey comes up after the successful Steam software update. Network speed is self-reported, all the rest is automatically pulled from your system. Participation in the survey is volountary.

  8. Steam Stress by Dark+Paladin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've been thinking this is the real reason why Half-Life 2 has been delayed. Don't get me wrong - I'm in no big rush, and since I don't anticipate an "OS X" client in, well, never, it will have to wait until I finally bother to upgrade my home PC.

    But from what I've been seeing about Steam, I have the feeling that most of the delays have been figuring out how to make that system work right the first time so they don't have a "first day Ultima Online/Everquest/any other massive online game issue" out there.

    A good thing, and it's interesting to watch the baby steps they take to break it (like with this survey) then probably analyze what worked and what didn't.

    --
    52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
  9. Win 95 by rvw14 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Anyone find it interesting that 212 users are using windows 95?

  10. Re:Stop beating the mule, ITS DEAD! by actor_au · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They plan to release it in four ways:

    1. Basic Retail Pack. Only Single Player with an option to upgrade to Multiplayer for a price over the internet.

    2. Full Retail Pack. Single Player and Multiplayer in one pack.

    3. Gold Retail Pack. Single Player, Multiplayer and all types of extra junk all crammed into it.

    4. Steam. Which will be Multiplayer, Singleplayer and maybe include a few mods that teams are working on right now(valvE are supporting HL1 mod teams in this).

    Valve want people to buy it over Steam for one good reason: Cash.
    They get 100% of all revenue from Steam based purchases, effectivly cutting retailers, middlemen and their publisher(Vivendi Universal Games) out of the loop.
    Which means that they get an arseload of money.

    --
    Read Errant Story.
  11. Hyperthreading by aSiTiC · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm surprised to see approximately 41% of those surveyed have Hyperthreading enabled. From what I know there are not very many processors that support this feature. Also considering that Intel has about 50% of those surveyed this means there are only 9% of Intel CPUS survey without HT? A little unbelievable...

    --

    Where the Music Matters

  12. Re:Opt-out or opt-in? by ctr2sprt · · Score: 4, Funny
    Did you read your own comment? "Is A true? I'm sure A is false. But I'm not sure. This in no way affects me."

    For what it's worth, participation is voluntary. So you were right to ask, wrong to be sure, right to be doubtful, and ultimately a waste of my time.