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

MS should reconsider DX10 for XP

[Dunkz]

If it hasn't become apparent that DX10 is not a reason folks will "upgrade" to Vista by now I don't know what else to say.

They should allow XP users to download and use DX10 as they have all along for other revisions of DirectX.

Re:MS should reconsider DX10 for XP

[moderatorrater]

I'm hoping that with DX10 as a dead end and openGL available for everyone while still progressing that we'll see more open work in the future. I also want world peace, true love and a pony.

Re:MS should reconsider DX10 for XP

[Chosen Reject]

This might sound odd, but if DX10 was available on XP, I would be more willing to look into Vista. By keeping DX10 Vista only, they tell me there is nothing in Vista worth upgrading to except DX10, but if it's on XP, then they are saying Vista can stand on its own compared to XP.

Granted, it still wouldn't get me to buy it, but that would remove at least one barrier.

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.

Re:MS should reconsider DX10 for XP

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to mod you "+1 Redundant".

Re:MS should reconsider DX10 for XP

[grahamd0]

Bravo. I wish there was a "+1 Didn't use a car analogy" mod.

Re:MS should reconsider DX10 for XP

[Chosen Reject]

The reason they won't backport DX10 is to make it an incentive to buy Vista, of this there is no doubt. However, MS has always backported new versions of DX to their previous releases. The latest nonDX10 version is available for Windows 98 for crying out loud. So now you have a feature that has never been (Windows) OS dependent that suddenly becomes so for "technical reasons," but every day we learn more and more that it was a complete lie. That says to me that it is one of Vista's only selling points. If there really were technical reasons then I could accept that. If it weren't technical reasons and they never said that it was, then I might think differently. Unfortunately, they lied that it was technical reasons when it really wasn't. That says to me that Vista has nothing worth upgrading for except DX10.

Both of those concepts have to be realized together. They've always backported DirectX to their supported systems AND they lied that it was technical reasons they couldn't do it this time. Why are they lying? If they had just come right out and said "DirectX 10 is only on Vista so that we can add another reason to the already long list of worthy upgrades" then I would understand that, but that's not what they did. They came out and gave us the lie "We aren't going to backport DX10 like we've done with all other versions because it's technically not possible." That says to me that they don't have a long list of reasons to upgrade, they have DX10.

That said, even if they did backport it and admit they lied, I still wouldn't buy Vista.

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.

Having played too much TF2...

[My name is Bucket]

I was much more fascinated/saddened/aroused by the fact that I instantly knew the TF2 screenshot from the article was in Dustbowl-- right around the corner from the final cap-- and was on to estimating that Spy's chance of survival (noticing that the sentry hasn't tracked him yet).

Couldn't get it to work

[taquitosgmail.com]

I recently (less than a week ago) built a gaming machine for my birthday and decided to buy Vista Ultimate. Strangely, I couldn't get the HL survey uploader to send the data back to Valve. Everything else works just fine though. Maybe other people are having similar issues? for the curious its running on an E6850, 2GB 1066, 500gb, 8800GTS-640oc. I really wanted to upload the info to help skew the results :)

Dos

[SmallFurryCreature]

Falcon 3.0 (please don't hang me on the number at my age the mind is becoming more and more like a) required me to upgrade to a new Dos. (5?)I did. (legally too)

That was the last time a game pushed me on a new MS release.

Back then 99% of games were DOS, only a handfull of games required Windows (3.X) and most DOS games ran a lot faster without windows loaded.

This didn't change for a long time even with the release of Windows 95. Quake was an important game back then,and running it under 95 just meant you sacrificed a lot memory the game could have been using. There was no benefit I can remember, and so I stuck with DOS for a long time. I have no recollection how long it took between 95's release and me finally getting and seeing games that were WIN95 only AND worth it. But it was at least a year.

Remember that dos to WIN95 was a HUGE change.

DirectX must have been introduced at some time, but I don't recall it being widely used until it was a couple of major releases old. Even MS own games didn't use it for a long time. MS Flightsimulator and Close Combat come to mind. In fact, MS games were notorious for being rather primitive, Close Combat was one of those games were you had to manuall set the desktop to reduced colors, this was AFTER DirectX had gotten some traction.

But we moved away from DOS, we now have DirectX games mostly and one day Vista will be the norm and so will DirectX 10, because just as games once become Windows9X only and games became DirectX only, so will they become Vista only and DirectX10 only.

The article notes that Vista has only 18% users. This is very noteworthy, but check the chart, how many Windows 9X users? For that many 2000 users? 9X ain't even listed, 2000 doesn't even get a full percentage.

Remember all the people who said they would stick with 9X or 2K? Where are they now? Not on steam at least.

We move on. I won't be getting Vista for a while, I like my linux desktop and for games I don't need it. Yet.

I think the biggest thing hurting MS at the moment is NOT Vista's tech woes, but something far more deadly. It is piracy. It ain't there. I am a freak for trying the latest software, but I also hate cripple ware and store bought machines, so I either look at spending a couple of hundred euro's on Vista because all the pirated versions seem to have problems.

How much of MS old early adoptor market consisted of pirates? I got 95Se 98 98SE 2K etc ALL from that subscription thing an old employer had. Illegal, sure. But those machines showed up in surveys like this. How any Steam players would run Vista if they could?

More and more games will be directx 10, or will look at their best in directx10. Support for XP will dry up, new computers will come with Vista pre-installed and people will move on.

Just as we did before.

The only difference as I have said is that this time it will be a lot harder to do it without paying MS, and for some of us, that is a big hurdle. I wouldn't mind trying Vista, it is not like I use my gaming machine for anything critical, but not for the current price tag.

But some day? Sure, if I can find an unused key somewhere for a non-crippled version. Because lets admit it, I want to see how shiny it is. Precious...

Re:Dos

[lgw]

Early DX was not in the kernel, and so was too slow for a FPS, and game studios ignored it. Starcraft was the first game I can rememeber running under DX, and was certainly the best game available for NT 4.0 in its day.

Eventually MS moved DX into the kernel, and suddenly games ran fine under DX and everyone switched. DX quickly overcame OpenGL in popularity. This was the age of DX.

Now history repeats, and DX10 is back out of the kernel (user-mode driver architecture) and it's slow and game studios are ignoring it. What were the odds?

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:Waste of time?

[spyrochaete]

I like Valve's knack for programming top notch effects for lowest common denominator hardware. For instance, instead of conforming to audio standards like EAX and ASIO they built a custom sound engine that supports and/or emulates the requisite effects. Also, Source Engine games are the only ones that can use both antialiasing and HDR on my GeForce 7950GT - NVidia themselves claimed this to be a limitation of this hardware yet Valve proved them wrong.

If Valve can achieve top-end results with middle-end (is middle an end?) hardware then more power to them!

Re:poor survery data..

[LingNoi]

And while they might not support the minority that use Linux and Apple OSes, I would assume that supporting the consoles instead (which they are doing) would bring in more money. Much more money.

Indeed, there is no question that consoles is where they make the most money on a AAA title.

I bet you if there was an officially supported version of steam that ran on Linux (via wine or whatever) it would have a higher percentage of use then Vista has as most Linux users are computer enthusiasts and gamers. Although Macs probably have a bigger user base not many are gamers.

VISTA 64bit is Better than XP 64bit

[gblackwo]

My gaming rig is running vista. Let me explain first that 64bit vista is leaps and bounds better than 64bit XP. So my powerhouse computer when it isn't gaming can put that 64bit goodness to use in the realm of digital audio, and CAD. On the otherhand- I have 4 gigs of ram and an O.Ced E6600. I see so many users with their new laptops that really shouldn't be running vista on their half gig of ram. etc.

Re:Vacuum

[C0rinthian]

There are actually a good amount of us Linux Gamers. We use WINE to run them. Our numbers wont show up in steam as Linux, because the OS detection wont detect it as Linux. Some Mac people also do this. If companies would use OpenGL instead of DirectX, it would be very easy to port the game to a different OS, it would mostly be recompiling source code. If companies would start being smart and not making their software for only Windows, they would make a lot more money. You missed my point. GP stated that Mac/linux showed lower numbers than Vista. I pointed out that is because Valve doesn't make anything for Mac/Linux. (hence no users)

I'm well aware of the existance of linux and mac gamers. I personally use a Mac. And your post simply reinforces my opinion that WINE is a bad thing. Why should software manufacturers make platform agnostic code when users are willing to run under Cedega/WINE?

Be wary of steam... (long)

[feepness]

Here is an exchange that just completed today. I purchased Company of Heores: Opposing Fronts off steam. It hung as detailed below. Never worked. I spent about three hours trying to fix it before buying a retail copy which worked immediately.

Me: 10/30/07 This game hangs at the "Preparing to launch..." from Steam. I tried verifying it, un-installing it, re-installing it, but no success. I even looked on the forums and tried a few things from there with no luck. I would like a refund for this game and for it to be removed from my account. Thanks.

Steam: 11/08/07 Hello, Have you already gone through this FAQ?

Me: 11/08/07 Hi there. I tried reading the FAQ and the forums and spent two or three hours on it. Here's a link to the thread on your forums with the list of many people who had the same problem:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=617610

I gave up and purchased a physical copy.

I think Steam is great for Valve Games and has worked well with older games. I would love to keep using it, but will need Company of Heroes: Opposing Forces removed and refunded.

Thanks.

Steam: 11/09/07 Hello XXXXXX, I see many mentions of Vista in that Forum post. If you installed Steam when UAC was enabled, there is a reasonable likelihood that UAC prevent a few keys from being properly generated. Assuming that you have already attempted to disable UAC to fix the issue, please try re-installing Steam with UAC disabled. Please use the latest Steam installer:
http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=getsteamnow&cc=US

You may prevent all of your game files from being lost by moving the Steamapps folder out of the steam directory before uninstalling and putting it back after re-installing.

If the issue persists, please right-click on the game and go to Properties > Local Content > Verify Game Cache, and try again.

Finally, the the following suggestion is usually used for a specifie error message, but I would be very interested to know if this affects the issue you are experiencing:

Vista Home Users
Go to: Start > Run and type in: cmd
type in the following:
net localgroup Administrators /add Local service
Restart your computer.
Vista Business & Ultimate Users
Right-click on Computer and select Manage.
Go to: Groups > Administrators > Add to group > Add > Advanced > Find Now > Local Service and click OK.
Restart your computer.

Me: 11/09/07 I already tried several things before to get it to work, including messing about with UAC, finding the key, and verifying the local game files, etc... I'm sorry, but as I said I purchased a physical copy a week ago and I'm not interested in using Steam for COF:OF at this point.

Here are my choices:

1) Get a refund, continue to use Steam to purchase Valve products and other games after reading the steampowered forum to ensure other people are successful using them. Share my experience with other gamers.
2) Do a chargeback, at which point I am assuming my Steam account will be disabled from what I've read online. Share my experience with other gamers.

As I also said, I would very much like to continue using Steam. I haven't yet chosen whether to buy Orange Box. At this point Valve's response will be a deciding factor.

Thanks,

Steam: 11/13/07:Hello,

As requested, we have processed a refund to your account.

Your confirmation number is: XXXXX

Your bank or credit card issuer will return the funds to your account - please allow 3-5 business days for the funds to be posted.

Please note in the future that Steam purchases, per the Steam Subscriber Agreement, are not refunda