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."

16 of 77 comments (clear)

  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.

  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 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.

    2. 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!
    3. 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
  3. Windows SP2 stats: The beast is everywhere... by geoffybiggins · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  4. 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.

  5. 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 =
  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. 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.

  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!"

  9. 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/

  10. 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!