Ogre Forums

valve steam does ask players for their Hardware capabilities and very kindly, gives results to everyone. It's very practical using those stats, to aim a gaming platform and define minimum requirements without loosing too much players.

http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

At post time :

Bad news : gf4 mx is still 11%, gf2 mx is still 7% !!

Good news : 94 % has SSE.and 1.5 Ghz is the minimum

I used a gf2(mx!) a couple of months ago , and it wasn't that bad

Wow, I actually think Valve could sell those numbers. Great info!

Keep in mind those survey numbers are HEAVILY SKEWED towards the hardcore gamer profile... They are not indicative of what the majority of people have... Of course, we're making a game targeting the core gamer market, so it's fine for us...

Holy shit, gf4mx is still second. I don't understand how the aTI 9800 series ends up above the 9600 series though.

Don't think so completly - for the internet connections yes - these are dedicated online gamers, but many use common hardware.

Look at the average rig 256-512mb ram, 2ghz cpu and the vast majority uses cideo cards in the GF2MX - ati9600 range. These are not machines of players with fat wallets. But they are actually more than CS should need (not sure here as I don't play it, but it's fairly old by now.)

@:wumpus:, maybe it is because many 9800 cards where delivered with a HL2-Coupon. Having the coupon is a strong reason to register at steam.

Korean (Adult) 28,223 2.54 %
Korean (Teen) 7,831 0.71 %

I am confused.

The survey only includes windows as an OS, i know this is the dominant system but it would be interesting if there was some data for Mac/Linux gamers as well.

I don't think their hardware differs much from windows users

I realise that, i was simply meaning that it would have been good to see the linux/mac included as apposed to simply "Windows Version"

Maybe not the point of their survey but it would have been usefull

Is there even a version of Half-Life 2 (or just Steam) for other OS'es than Windows?

No. The game itself is Windows only. But there is a dedicated server for hl2 deathmatch and cs:source.

Ah ok, sorry i misunderstood what it was,

thought it was a general survey

IMO: if you're aiming for casual gamers, you should target a 1GHz system w/256MB and a 32MB GF2 card - especially if you're targeting multiple platforms.

"Current" games ought to shoot for ~1.5Ghz, a GF4 Ti/FX 5200/Radeon 9600, and 512MB of ram. Which is enough for some nice shader effects and such.

Hardcore doesn't matter, since they'll always have the lastest/greatest hardware. As an indie developer - I'd ignore that category anyway - as art assets are just a bit too much: Your emphasis should be on overall quality and gameplay.

As a result, steam is VERY skewed. I know few people who own the "biggest" cards available. As a developer, I don't even test with them - I use what the customers use.

GF4mx is the most common low end card still by far, even according to this survery, but yeah that's nothing more than a GF2.