Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Valve Releases Hardware Survey Results

Posted by Zonk on from the i-know-what-you've-been-playing dept.

Chris_Yates writes "A hardware survey containing over one million entries has been made public by Valve, the creators of Half-Life 2. Some interesting facts include: 65.89% now have SP2 compared to 17.04% for SP1, AMD and Intel almost split 50/50 with nVidia edging out ATI 50.72% to 41.03%. The Radeon 9800 and 9600 take the top two spots with 20% combined."

77 comments

  1. confusing presentation by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They made the same mistakes in presentation of this survey that everyone else seems to make. I have 1 gig of RAM. So, do I fit in the category of 512mb-1gig, or do I fit in the category of 1 gig to 1.5 gig? That's just a stupid mistake. Even if they collected the data properly, they aren't reporting it properly. Stupid, useless survey. OK, I see the first line that implies that the ranges are set up like this: [low-high). Is it so hard to carry that through the entire chart?

    --
    Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
    1. Re:confusing presentation by Tyir · · Score: 4, Funny

      Stop moving two minutes forward in time and stealing my posts!!

    2. Re:confusing presentation by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 3, Funny

      REAL statistics are expensive.

      This garbage statistic is useless and only serves as a bragging tool for those who wish to "purchase" profiles from a gamer-type computer user.

      The real statistics are 20K$ and up. With optional forced updates that scour the registry for names, addresses, and unique identifiers and such to hard-link all that information.

      --
    3. Re:confusing presentation by kafka47 · · Score: 5, Funny

      If he were moving forward in time, wouldn't he be posting after you?

      Plus which, his post is shown to be four minutes before yours. My temporal mechanics is a bit rusty, but that makes him posting a full six minutes ahead of you (had he not used his transmorgifier to shorten the gap).

      Takes quite the effort to get ahead of, er behind, you.

    4. Re:confusing presentation by ZephyrXero · · Score: 1

      No, if you look further down you'll see his original post which is very similar (modded redundant currently) and they are only a minute apart, if that even.

      --
      "A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
    5. Re:confusing presentation by ZephyrXero · · Score: 1

      Accurate or not, these stats are still pretty interesting. They don't give you much insight into what your average joe has under the hood, but it does give you insight into those who play these type games, and have $60 to throw at an overpriced game (aka hardcore PC gamers).

      I'm just curious as to under the "Windows Version" section if the 957 "other" is referring to the Linux/Wine users, or if they ignored those users completely?

      --
      "A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
    6. Re:confusing presentation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows 3.11 / win32s 4 EVA!

    7. Re:confusing presentation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I'm just curious as to under the "Windows Version" section if the 957 "other" is referring to the Linux/Wine users, or if they ignored those users completely?
      Some of us are still running MS-Windows 9x.
      (I'm running 95 on one machine, 95B on another (both of which dual-boot with Linux, of course), because I refuse to give any more of my money to Bill.)
    8. Re:confusing presentation by nacturation · · Score: 1

      If he were moving forward in time, wouldn't he be posting after you?

      The answer, of course, is that it depends on your frame of reference. If you're waiting for the mysterious future, moving forward in time will allow you to get the first post while the other guy's stuck in the past hitting refresh.

      Any other jokes I can kill while I'm at it? :)

      --
      Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
  2. Bandwith by roseblood · · Score: 3, Interesting

    80% of the respondants(sp) in the survey have pipes that handle at least 256.0 Kbps.

    Over 56% have 768.0 Kbps.

    The largest responding group has 1,024.0 Kbps.

    It's certainly a broadband world in Valveville.

    --
    There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
    1. Re:Bandwith by bad_fx · · Score: 2, Interesting

      One word: Steam.

    2. Re:Bandwith by rathehun · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Whats so strange?


      You *need* at least a 256 kbps line to play CS : Source, and Steam just sucks up bandwith, especially with the initial decryption or whatever. I know a friend who specifically arranged for a 512 kbps line so that he could play Source.


      And if I take India as a representative, $10 for 256 kbps works out, especially when you're shelling out $50 for the original game.


      What I do find crazy is that there are some computers with 32 mb of RAM listed here. I'm surprised Steam even loaded! There are about a 100 people who have less than a 100 megs of RAM who are probably cursing 'coz HL2 doesn't work on their machines. And don't get me started on the 200 MHz machines which are listed!


      R.

    3. Re:Bandwith by Dr.Opveter · · Score: 3, Interesting

      When i used to play Quake online i remember my 33k6 dial-up had a better ping than the 1.5mbit cable i got later.

      --
      Sample this!
    4. Re:Bandwith by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      There are about a 100 people who have less than a 100 megs of RAM who are probably cursing 'coz HL2 doesn't work on their machines.
      I think this survey was sent to all steam users. Including those who play CS on HL1, but don't own HL2. You don't need much memory/processor power to play HL1.
    5. Re:Bandwith by FidelCatsro · · Score: 3, Insightful
      What I do find crazy is that there are some computers with 32 mb of RAM listed here. I'm surprised Steam even loaded! There are about a 100 people who have less than a 100 megs of RAM who are probably cursing 'coz HL2 doesn't work on their machines. And don't get me started on the 200 MHz machines which are listed!
      There is also alot of people who love messing with statistics ;)
      --
      The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
    6. Re:Bandwith by Vengeance_au · · Score: 1
      You *need* at least a 256 kbps line to play CS : Source
      Have to say thats not right - I'm on ISDN (128kbps), and it plays perfectly fine. Pings in the 60-80 range, lag is rare, and I have a fragging good time, even on the 32 person servers. Dropping the ISDN to 64k is not great, but you can still play on 10-12 player servers with not too many flying barrels with no lag.

      Now, admittedly more bandwidth = a better experience, but its quite playable and enjoyable on 128k.
    7. Re:Bandwith by cipher+uk · · Score: 1

      the data was collected automatically and shown to the user. the only two questions asked were 'what is your connection speed?' and 'is it ok to send this data?'.

      not much you could mess with unless you want to run your steam account on an older pc u have for a few secs.

    8. Re:Bandwith by FidelCatsro · · Score: 2, Informative

      or on the other hand , have the system misrepresent the data which is rather easy on linux ,Fairly sure it would be easy on windows too.

      --
      The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
    9. Re:Bandwith by FictionPimp · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Dont forget people running servers. Counterstrike doesn't take much for a good server.

    10. Re:Bandwith by FortranDragon · · Score: 1

      What I do find crazy is that there are some computers with 32 mb of RAM listed here. I'm surprised Steam even loaded! There are about a 100 people who have less than a 100 megs of RAM who are probably cursing 'coz HL2 doesn't work on their machines. And don't get me started on the 200 MHz machines which are listed!

      Because this is a *Steam* survey, not a Half-Life 2 survey. Those folks are playing things such as Half-Life 1, TFC, Sven-Coop, etc. :-D

      --
      "All the darkness in the world can not quench the light of one small candle."
  3. In between ratings.. by Tyir · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Does anyone else find their method of rating silly, especially in terms of RAM?

    Say I have 1G of Ram. Am I "512 Mb to 1 Gb" or "1 Gb to 1.5 Gb"? Who knows? Same for any other memory amount, the ratings are unfortunately garbage.

    Otherwise, an interesting survey, especially in that it shows much much gamers use AMD (47%) as compared to your average user.

    1. Re:In between ratings.. by code-e255 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Look at the firstline of the category:

      >=24 Mb to 32 Mb

      I assume this is followed throughout displayed results. Still, it's a little a bit confusing at first, I admit.

      So if you've got 512MB, you're in the "512 Mb to 1 Gb" category, not the previous one.

      By the way, isn't 'b' bit and 'B' byte? If so, they should've presumably used MB, GB etc. instead of Mb, Gb etc.

    2. Re:In between ratings.. by ebichu · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      There is no standard abbreviation for byte or bit, and 'b' and 'B' are used interchangably for bit and byte to such an extent that there really isn't a consensus non-standard abbreviation for either.

      'B' should be avoided in some contexts, as it normally stands for 'Bel', one of the dimensionless units of ratio and similarly 'b' is 'barn' a slightly freaky unit of area equal to 10^-28 square meters -- used for measuring the space taken up by very small farm buildings, one must assume.

      Oddly, the Bel and barn aren't actually part of the SI system of measurment, but are officially 'accepted for use' in combination with it. Those zany French!

      --
      -- "let's get wild. There's plenty of time to do nothing when we're dead." - Dorothy Parker
  4. And which one of you... by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: -1, Troll

    And which one of you actually agreed to be profiled like this? Oh yeah, buying a BOX that doesnt do didly, and then finally plays ONLY with an internet connection.

    You do realise, that many companies LOVE stats like this, and will pay WELL for them? Why arent you getting a cut on what Valve leeches off of you?

    Gotta love closed, properitary, remote-kill-switch types of programs. It'd make Larry McVoy happy.

    --
    1. Re:And which one of you... by NanoGator · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      "And which one of you actually agreed to be profiled like this?"

      Well, let's go down the list of names and social security numbers they've collect... :P

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    2. Re:And which one of you... by BlueHands · · Score: 1

      So, paying for any software is a bad thing? I don't care if they implement RFC 1149 for my gaming experience,as long as i like the game. Might as well say "buying a stupid piece of silicon that doesnt DO anything with out instructions!!"

      As for the stats, you have an way to make money off of just yourself reporting stats to someone, please tell us more. I am sure if there was some sort of community/non-profit version we could all reply to that would be great but i don't know of any. Besides, the biggest value is to valve and their competitors and the data has been (to some extent) shared with the world,right? So the problem is.....??

      And I am sure that there is no way to disable that kill-switch. Nope,never gonna happen. No one would every figure out a way around such a thing. You are so wise.

      --
      I mod everyone down who says "I'll get modded down for this." I hate to disappoint.
    3. Re:And which one of you... by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 1

      ---So, paying for any software is a bad thing? I don't care if they implement RFC 1149 for my gaming experience,as long as i like the game. Might as well say "buying a stupid piece of silicon that doesnt DO anything with out instructions!!"

      Wow, talking about wiseness here, but nobody put cryptographic locks keeping me from using only certified OS'es... (oh yeah, people were up in arms about Palladium, which said exactly that).

      When the lords above deem that you're not good enough for the community and forcibly delete your key to run the blasted program, guess what? Its nothing more than a plastic disk and a box.

      ---As for the stats, you have an way to make money off of just yourself reporting stats to someone, please tell us more. I am sure if there was some sort of community/non-profit version we could all reply to that would be great but i don't know of any. Besides, the biggest value is to valve and their competitors and the data has been (to some extent) shared with the world,right? So the problem is.....??

      Aside the rambling, what exactly did you say?

      You DO know ad providers (Doubleclick and other meat-space vendors) do buy legitimate profiles of audiences. If this program shows a statistically calculated margin of error, it would be worth a LOT.

      ---And I am sure that there is no way to disable that kill-switch. Nope,never gonna happen. No one would every figure out a way around such a thing. You are so wise.

      Oh sheesh. Yeah, go warez it, retard. The people who wanna play online cant, and you wont be playing against them, now will you. And who said that a naughty program couldnt just instead encrypt all files it has access to? Thats what a certain old unix virus did.. "Talk to Valve about decrypting these files BY NOT PIRATING"

      Damn right I'm wise.

      --
    4. Re:And which one of you... by PylonHead · · Score: 4, Informative

      I can't speak for anyone else, but I did agree to be profiled. It was very clearly optional.

      --
      # (/.);;
      - : float -> float -> float =
    5. Re:And which one of you... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Come on now and share your hardware specs
      You'll be free
      You'll be freeeeeee.

      ---
      2x 2.666 Ghz Xeon 1GB R9700Pro -- it's absolutely worthless data in isolation.

    6. Re:And which one of you... by Robmonster · · Score: 3, Informative

      Erm, everyone who participated agreed to be profiled......

      When you logged into Steam a window popped up asking if you wanted to be part of the survey.

      Paranoia's bad, Mmmkay?

      --
      I have no sig yet I must scream.
    7. Re:And which one of you... by BlueHands · · Score: 1
      Wow, talking about wiseness here, but nobody put cryptographic locks keeping me from using only certified OS'es... (oh yeah, people were up in arms about Palladium, which said exactly that).


      and this has what to do with your pointless comment regarding buying a box? The point is that everything is useless in the wrong context. At this point saying it is useless without internet is almost the same as saying the game is useless without a good graphics card.

      Aside the rambling, what exactly did you say?

      You DO know ad providers (Doubleclick and other meat-space vendors) do buy legitimate profiles of audiences. If this program shows a statistically calculated margin of error, it would be worth a LOT.


      Sorry it was hard for you to understand. does Doubleclick buy profiles from single induhviualls? If so, how much are people losing and how hard is it to cash in on this new-found wealth?

      Oh sheesh. Yeah, go warez it, retard. The people who wanna play online cant, and you wont be playing against them, now will you. And who said that a naughty program couldnt just instead encrypt all files it has access to? Thats what a certain old unix virus did.. "Talk to Valve about decrypting these files BY NOT PIRATING"


      Other then you have made the sadly common mistake of calling such things pirating as well as assuming that anything thing that defeats drm is "warez", you have assumed it matters. Valve isn't going to turn off your purchase without reason or without recourse.

      Your wisdom is without question, Sire. Thank you for your gift o' great lord.
      --
      I mod everyone down who says "I'll get modded down for this." I hate to disappoint.
    8. Re:And which one of you... by Elkboy · · Score: 1

      OK, so Valve are being uptight with Steam, sure. But I know there won't be any problems playing HL2 if Valve suddenly implodes. There are people who saw to that shortly after the game's release, and in the case of Valve remote killing my HL2, I would have no compunction whatsoever employing their solutions.

      Besides, if Valve adjusts their game specs to match better computers as a result from this survey, I will get something in return - a hotter HL2.

  5. Windows SP2 stats: The beast is everywhere... by geoffybiggins · · Score: 4, Funny

    XP SP 2 (Build 2600) 666,890 65.89 %

  6. nice... by BRTB · · Score: 5, Funny

    I just want to salute whoever the joker is that convinced the survey app that he had an "INTERWEBntel" processor.

    1. Re:nice... by cgenman · · Score: 2, Funny

      Personally, I want to salute the thousand people trying to run Half Life 2 under an intel i810 on-board graphics card. I remember struggling to get that chipset to work with the first Half Life.

      Or that one person trying to get things running on a less than 1 GB HDD.

      Eternal optimism, I salute you!

      --
      The ______ Agenda
    2. Re:nice... by Lars+T. · · Score: 1
      Hey, what about the 1,024 using an ATI Rage 128 Pro?

      Ohh, and there seems to be one running it on Virtual PC (for Mac likely).

      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

    3. Re:nice... by default+luser · · Score: 1

      There's nothing wrong with running HL on a Rage 128. The card was released after the game, and was quite competitve at the time.

      You can even get accelerated Win2k / XP drivers for it :D

      This is ignoring the huge debacle that was the Rage Pro MAXX.

      Now, trying to play Half-Life with a Trident Blade 3D, now THAT would be a challenge.

      --

      Man is the animal that laughs.
      And occasionally whores for Karma.

    4. Re:nice... by Lars+T. · · Score: 1

      Sure, just like it will run Doom 2 without a problem. Just that this survey is about Steam and thus Half Life 2 ;-)

      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

    5. Re:nice... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Umm... No.

      I don't have HL2, but I use Steam all the time. I bought HL and CS:CZ, so I now have access to all of the games released with the original engine, such as Opposing Force and too many multiplayer variants.

      Steam existed before HL2.

    6. Re:nice... by default+luser · · Score: 1

      No, it's not.

      This story is about Steam, and thus Valve's entire online game library. Or did you just think you bought Half-Life 2 with Steam's Silver and Gold packages?

      This survey covers all of Valve's online gamers. It is no longer possible to play Half-Life and it's respective mods through WON.

      People still play three times as much original CS as all Source engine games combined...and they do it all through Steam, unless it's local.

      Care to retract your statement?

      --

      Man is the animal that laughs.
      And occasionally whores for Karma.

    7. Re:nice... by Lars+T. · · Score: 1

      Sure, if you post the same rant to the original poster.

      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

  7. Learn a new thing everday! by doofer · · Score: 4, Funny

    Language:
    Korean (Adult) 22,241 2.19 %
    Korean (Teen) 3,140 0.31 %

    Never knew Korean language was actually specified as different for Adults and teenagers!

    Bet english and a lot of other languages _could_ do the same.

    1. Re:Learn a new thing everday! by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 1

      In Korea, only old people speak Adult Korean.

    2. Re:Learn a new thing everday! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, they have familiar and non-familiar forms of the language too. A friend of mine got in big trouble for accidentally using the familiar form when speaking to an older Korean.

  8. AMD/Intel split by dave-tx · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I think the most interesting point on this survey is the CPU split between Intel and AMD. Maybe I've been out of the loop for too long, but this is by far the highest percentage of AMD users I've seen in any survey.

    Perhaps this speaks more to the demographic that Valve is serving, but I still find this statistic to be very important.

    --

    >> "What would the robut do? Frame someone!"

    1. Re:AMD/Intel split by SunFan · · Score: 1


      AMD has been producing better CPUs for PCs for a while now. It's about time the markets caught up.

      Intel lags behind on power consumption, balanced performance, and price. They've run out of frequency head room on the Pentium 4, so I guess the Pentium M is all they got for the future. AMD still has room to go.

      --
      -- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
  9. Massive Hard Drives by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    8.88% have over 250GB HDD? And to think I am fine with 20GB....

    1. Re:Massive Hard Drives by Metroid72 · · Score: 1

      Dude, that's because you probably have a different machine to store your p0rn

    2. Re:Massive Hard Drives by leland242 · · Score: 1

      250 is really not that much space these days.

  10. Just like last time by vasqzr · · Score: 3, Informative


    Didn't they have a similar survey last time?

    Wait, I found it.

    http://valve.speakeasy.net/

  11. PC Developers VS. Console Developers by CokoBWare · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I participated in this survey, and one thing that strikes me as interesting is that there are a lot of people who are still holding onto the ATI 9XX0 series of hardware.

    One question I have is... considering that console game developers push the absolute limits of the console platform, why don't PC game developers do the same with a baseline PC hardware config? Anything extra processing juice will be just gravy then.

    Is it funny that as PC owners, we are forced to upgrade our equipment every year or two to get the experience with the games we want, where consoles don't have that at all except get the games?

    Maybe this is why consoles are so popular. PC gaming hardware gets way to expensive year after year.

    It's a conspiracy... I know it! Get the developers to make games for advanced hardware instead of pushing their engines and baseline hardware to the max with better code.

    I love gaming, on any platform. But I know I'll get flamed for this... so... flame away!

    1. Re:PC Developers VS. Console Developers by MattW · · Score: 0, Troll

      Consoles are popular because most people are idiots, and if you give them choices, they get confused and inevitably fuck it up. This is further confused by marketspeak on new PCs, advertising things like, "WOW! Intel Super 3D GRAPHICS INTEGRATED!" and then people wonder why, if Intel (the only brand name they likely recognize and associate with quality) has this "Super" 3D chip, why does their PC game run like total crap, if at all?

      In any event, most developers DO allow for older hardware. HL2 and Doom3 are known to run pretty nicely on even considerably older hardware. But those of us on the cutting edge get a lot of love, because part of what these companies do is advance the state of the art. If these games DID NOT cater to the cutting edge gaming enthusiasts, then who would be left to PC game at all? Everyone would be on the console for cheapness/ease of use, or just because "hey, the PC isn't any better".

      Is having a Dual GeForce 6800 SLI setup overkill? Sure. As is the 2GB of ram, the 10k raptor SATA drives, and the overclocked AMD64. But when I go to play, I know that what I'm experiencing is as good as it gets. And given how many hours I spend playing games and how much I enjoy that after a hard day toiling away at code and such (and posting to Slashdot, too!), it's pretty damn enjoyable.

      Honestly, who the hell wants to game on an XBox these days?

      * 733 Mhz Intel process
      * GeForce 3 (mostly)
      * 64MB RAM
      * 10GB Drive

      I have a friend who has been using the same gaming PC for coming up on 3 years in June, and his is *still* better than that. Meanwhile, look at what the PC does that the XBox does not (the list is endless).

      On the other hand, I like the fact that the XBox is, fundamentally, PC hardware, as it encourages cross-platform games.

      Of course, the real reason I'm not playing on consoles 99% of the time is that the interface remains clunky. The handheld controllers are not comfortable to use, and you can do a lot less. With a PC, I can comfortable control a mouse with 4 buttons and a wheel, plus easily access at least 15+ keyboard buttons and another 15 or more with a smidge of extra effort. The thought of trying to play an FPS game on a console is enough to give me nightmares.

    2. Re:PC Developers VS. Console Developers by kyager · · Score: 1

      You seen to forget that 1 small PC part can EASILY cost twice as much as a console and a couple games... Consoles are a great way to play great games with a limited budget.

    3. Re:PC Developers VS. Console Developers by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > considering that console game developers push the absolute limits of the console platform,
      > why don't PC game developers do the same with a baseline PC hardware config?

      Having shipped both PC and console (PSX/PS2) titles, I can answer this.

      "Too many variables."

      _What_ is baseline?
      * Is it DX8, DX9? (aka Pixel Shaders 1 or 2)
      * What is the minimum MHz we can count on?
      * How much Video and System Ram can we count on?

      Baseline is a moving target. It's WAY easier to optimized for a fixed platform.

      It's a legitimate question, so I don't see why you should be flamed for asking. It's the answers you have to watch out for! :-)

      Cheers

    4. Re:PC Developers VS. Console Developers by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Postscript...

      Another reason this doesn't happen...

      If you're optimizing for yesterday, or even today's hardware, another game developer is optimizing for tomorrows hardware.

      Newer must be better right?! The market seems to think so...

    5. Re:PC Developers VS. Console Developers by Low2000 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The thing that confuses me is if the Xbox has a 733Mhz processor and 64MB of shared RAM, why does it take, say, around 1.8 Ghz CPU, 512MB RAM and a mid range grafics card to display a similer level of graphics.

      I know the OS eats RAM and runs processes in the background but unless your system is terribly loaded with spyware and the like, that still leaves at least a couple hundred megs for the game and more then enough CPU cycles. IMO anyway.

    6. Re:PC Developers VS. Console Developers by Elshar · · Score: 0


      I'll bite. For the most part, its how its done.

      There's a bunch of normalized baseline settings.

      They usually run at say 800x600x16, with no aa or af, no dynamic shadows/lighting, or super ultra high res models. The AI distance might be set pretty close, and it might disable whole functions to make it faster.

      Just look at any modern (within 2-3 years) game's settings layout, and you'll see what I mean. Most of the time they auto-detect what you have and pre-select what things to turn on/off so you'll enjoy the game at hopefully >10 fps.

      Your argument is a valid one, both have their places. I do both console gaming, owning all the current gen consoles as well as pc gaming. They both have their advantages.

    7. Re:PC Developers VS. Console Developers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because the Xbox runs at 640x480 and TVs are fuzzy.

    8. Re:PC Developers VS. Console Developers by Baikala · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Read some posts above. Two reasons basicaly, the extreme optimizations that can be done when you know exactly on what hardware your game is going to be run on, and the relative low res of a regular or even an "HD" tv set.

      --
      16,777,216 comments ought to be enough for any forum!
    9. Re:PC Developers VS. Console Developers by Low2000 · · Score: 1

      I know you have to be right. The proof is the visual quality of games out today on all platrorms.

      And maybe when you take in all of the different things mentioned, it's ture.

      It just seems with all of the standards avalible on the PC front, your developing for the standard and not a particular peice of hardware. High end games are designed to run on either ATI or nVidia for graphics these days, and thats only '2' platforms. And they are very similer. AMD and Intel CPUs execute the same code with roughtly the same resault.

      Again, I know you have to be right... but it just doesn't sit right with me.

    10. Re:PC Developers VS. Console Developers by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      > Because the Xbox runs at 640x480 and TVs are fuzzy.

      This is a VERY good point. And usually under rated, or ignored when discussing PC vs Consoles. I'd like to add my comments...

      The fuzzy comment is important because all UI elements MUST be placed a minimum distance away from the edge of the screen. "Screen real estate" is very valuable on a console. Something PC developers can usually be a litle more sloppy with.

      The AC comment infers / summarizes two points:
      1. Fill-rate. (in the general case, time)
      2. Texture size (or in the general case, space)

      I still remember the days of dropping Quake 1 down into 512x384 res on the Voodoo 1 to maintain an optimal frame rate. Those days are long gone though, because we love high res on the PC.

      i.e. With 1024x768 and up, fonts look *great*, even if they are smaller.

      Due to the huge amoutn of RAM we have on the PC, we can use 256x256 or 512x512 textures, instead of 64x64 or 128x128 textures that the consoles are usually limited to. Sure, we _could_ use the lower textures on a PC, but the game would look terrible, because the bar has been _already_ been raised. (UT2K5 looks beautiful :-) We expect PCs to do more (and look better) because it can. I'm not saying the quest for "realism" is a bad thing, but every increase in graphics processing power we have, we continue to use it up.

      If we could tolerate a "low" res of 640x480, we could "free" up some fill-rate to burn for FX. Look at the sniper effect in Halo 1 (XBOX) and then how the game runs on PCs. We expect the game to look and perform the same at a significantly higher resolution (1280x1024), oblivious to the EXTRA bandwidth requirements, and procesing power (time.)

      Console games are all about Space vs Time tradeoffs.

      So why don't we just develop a "good" engine on the console, and port to the PC? Because there are issues if we develop a console engire first, and port to PC, or vice versa. It's the old rule: Do you want your code Fast or Flexible? That's the strengths of Console, and the PC's respectfully.

      Console code HAS to run tight. The problem is, in order to gain this, trade offs have to be made -- you use features ONLY available on a console. (You don't even want to know about the hacks Halo 1 used)
      i.e. XBox's unified memory is a God-send compared to coding on the PS2 or even the PC with it's HUGE amount of Megabytes.

      Summary on the console: The less variables you have, the easier it is optimize it for.

      i.e.
      On PC land, we _automatically_ have these variables...

      Intel vs AMD
      nVidia vs ATI
      Screen Resolution
      Texture Resolution

      Which "platform" will you optimize for? Do you want your game to look the best in the 'general' case? Or you do you want it to run the fastest?

      Everyone expects consoles to not look as good as PC games. (Technically, the PC and consoles leap frog one another every few years -- so NO flames -- I don't see my PS2 or XBox hitting 1600x1200 res!)

      The FIRST rule on consoles: 30 fps. Without that, who cares how good (or bad) your game looks? On PC, its the OTHER side of the coin. The user can always upgrade if his gaming experience is too slow -- if it doesn't catch his eye, he probably won't be sticking with it. (This is more of an 'game industry' problem then 'blame' per say at PC developers.)

      Hope that helped shed some light on why the AC comment hit the nail on the head.

      Cheers

    11. Re:PC Developers VS. Console Developers by HD+Webdev · · Score: 1

      The thing that confuses me is if the Xbox has a 733Mhz processor and 64MB of shared RAM, why does it take, say, around 1.8 Ghz CPU, 512MB RAM and a mid range grafics card to display a similer level of graphics. I know the OS eats RAM and runs processes in the background but unless your system is terribly loaded with spyware and the like, that still leaves at least a couple hundred megs for the game and more then enough CPU cycles. IMO anyway.

      It isn't a similar level of graphics. The resolution of consoles is very different from a PC. Less than 1% of current PC FPS players would want to use the resolution that console players have. In fact, I haven't used a recent FPS that allowed me to lower my resolution to be equal to what a console displays. (q3/doom3/RTCW/BF1942/UT2k4/etc... do not allow this)

      For example, Quake1 allowed that sort of thing. But, that was 9 years ago.

      Not only that, but PC games LOVE to have extra memory so that they can cache maps & related files so that level loading is as fast as possible.

      --
      This is not a dream, not a dream...we are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9.
  12. Athlon 64 by MindStalker · · Score: 1

    I also noticed that my 2800+ Athlon 64 was reporting in the survey as a 1.8 Ghz Athlon, which it technically is, but still misleading.

    1. Re:Athlon 64 by xenocide2 · · Score: 1

      Which is why they group AMD hertz seperately from Intel's. Makes more sense in the survey, although these days there's signifcant overlap even within AMD. I'm not sure how they get a processor rated 3500+ to run the same as a 3000+, but the benchmarks usually indicate that they are indeed faster.

      --
      I Browse at +4 Flamebait

      Open Source Sysadmin

  13. Start manufacturing to DVD by Ungemah · · Score: 1

    One of my pet peeves has been 6-CD disk installs for the latest games. To date, the marketing mantra has emphasized the Wal-Mart crowd. However, the glaring finding from the survey shows an overwhelming proportion of users now have a DVD drive. Multi-CD productions now have no excuse. Make it DVD.

  14. DVD's at 85% by Dutchmaan · · Score: 2, Informative

    What I find interesting is that most players have DVD drives (85%), yet game companies consistently release majority in CD format..

    1. Re:DVD's at 85% by IntergalacticWalrus · · Score: 1

      Why? 15% is still a significant figure in terms of potential losses of sales.

    2. Re:DVD's at 85% by Dutchmaan · · Score: 1

      I wasn't suggesting that they ditch CD's altohether, I was suggesting that they make DVD's a primary option and CD secondary...

    3. Re:DVD's at 85% by IntergalacticWalrus · · Score: 1

      I think it has been discussed not long ago by one of the guys at id Software (IIRC). Bottom line is most publishers don't want to bother with two editions of the same game, as it causes expensive management overhead and confuses consumers.

    4. Re:DVD's at 85% by Zeussy · · Score: 1

      Most games I see on the shelves here in the UK are now DVD. Not like a new DVD drive cost that much anyway. Less than the price of a new game.

      --
      Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game
  15. not really the point by MattW · · Score: 1

    The OP point was that PC game designers should be designing to the lowest common denominator of PC hardware. My point is: why would a gaming enthusiast want to game on a console if they had a choice? Your answer is one - if you have a limited budget, consoles are certainly a great entry level way to game. But let's say we have 3 classes of people:

    (1) Gamers with only consoles, or consoles superior to their PCs
    (2) Gamers with PCs only about as good as consoles
    (3) Gamers with PCs superior to consoles

    The author suggests that game designers cater to (2). I believe that would happen at the expense of (3), and that (1) and (3) are going to be significantly larger than (2). People who want to game on the PC tend to get hardware better than is available in a console. At the time the XBox came out, it was roughly equivalent to good-but-not-great PC gaming, and it has since completely fallen off the map. That's unsurprising, because it's about to be replaced with a next gen box. But will the next XBox even reach the plateau where PC gaming is right now? The high end system of choice right now is an SLI rig with dual nvidias, and can probably crush even the next gen xbox, especially when cranking up the AA/AF for better looking graphics.

    So if developers geared toward a baseline performance optimization by sacrificing the high end, they'd be abandoned by the enthusiasts who are their core market. If people are on a budget, they buy consoles. If people are short on technical know how, they're unlikely to be PC gamers. If someone has strong tech knowledge and a desire and even a moderate budget, they can likely grab a pre-owned PC and/or collect Fry's bargain hardware, and grab a nice but second-gen card and end up with a pretty good PC game system for only marginally more than a console and a few games.

  16. ...well... by Spazztastic · · Score: 1

    Unfortionately people are too ignorant to know that they're more interested in the upstream of your network than the downstream

    and this info has been around for quite a while

    --
    Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
  17. NTFS? by 10537 · · Score: 1

    And what about the 96,172 people running XP or 2000 but not using NTFS? Surely some mistake?

    --
    This sentence no verb.
    1. Re:NTFS? by IntergalacticWalrus · · Score: 1

      Why? 2000 and XP do work on FAT32, and I know of many people who do it on purpose so they can access their data from Windows 9x (or Linux in R/W).

  18. Worthless results by skintigh2 · · Score: 1

    Hmmm...
    People running SP1 or SP2 68%
    People running SP2 or SP1 32%

    The best part of this survey is that in 2 catagories I am in 4 postitions:
    I have 512MB-1GB AND 1GB-1.5GB of RAM
    I have a 30GB-40GB and a 40GB-50GB drive

    Also, my network speed is not an option, no matter what we are measuring, be it my 100Mb local network or my 3Mb net connection.

    1. Re:Worthless results by wolssiloa · · Score: 1

      in reference to the hdd size, they are going by the actual real size, not the size that is listed by manufacturer of your hdd, so that would mean you would most likely have a ~38GB hdd, so you would be in the 30GB-40GB category...

  19. Re:-1 Redundant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Duhhh, no shit? How many times have people repeated this fact that AMD is better than Intel in more ways than one?