Steam Survey Takes PC Gaming's Pulse

Via Rock Paper Shotgun and Primotech, the latest in Valve's ongoing PC hardware survey via the Steam service. Some very interesting stuff in there, though probably nothing too surprising. From RPS's analysis: "Vista has shown a small increase in representation, but clearly nowhere near where Microsoft would have desperately hoped. Previously 7.99% of gamers were using the latest operating system. Now it's 16.91%, with a vast 81.13% sticking with XP. Rather confirming Valve's position on DX10, and what a massive waste of time it is developing for Vista only."

Comments

Compared to the spring results

[Nos.]

Its interesting to compare some of the results from the Spring 2007 survey (http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey_v6.html):

• RAM went way up, almost 1/2 are using 2GB or more.
• AMD is losing more ground with Intel up almost 4%
• Almost 1/2 of gamers are using more than one physical CPU now (which includes dual/quad core)
• Nvidia has taken a bigger lead at the expense of ATI

Obviously an increase in system RAM and CPU numbers/speed is expected, but this is only over about a 6 month period.

Re:Waste of time?

[Chosen Reject]

Having Vista is only half of it, though. Right under "Windows version" is this

• DirectX10 Systems (Vista with DirectX10 GPU) - 9.00% of users

So 20% have Vista, and some odd % have DX10 cards and the intersection of those two groups is 9%. Is it worth it now to create a whole rendering path that is only usable to 9% of your users? From the last survey they did there was only 2.31% of DX10 systems. That was 8 months ago. So if every 8 months DX10 systems goes up 6.5% then maybe it will be worth it for them to make Episode 3 DX10, but even then my guess is for just an episode that would be a waste of time. No, I suspect that Half Life 3 or whatever might be DX10 capable, but I wouldn't expect it for Episode 3.

Having said that, I think they ought to port it to Linux and Mac. They already have their engine running on the PS3 (which means it isn't using DX at all) so it can't be that hard.

Re:MS should reconsider DX10 for XP

[nuzak]

As DX10 is implemented now, it can't work on XP, since relies on Vista usermode drivers. They can port it, feature for feature, of course (and some enterprising folks apparently already have to some degree).

Besides, we're all pretty used to companies changing their stories. We let 'em have their justifications as long as they deliver.