Steam survey results expose the state of PC hardware

Page 2 of 2:

Page 2

6: Seventy-three percent (1,291,567) use 4:3 aspect-ratio monitors, compared to 25% (450,526) on 16:9 widescreen.
Honestly, we expected more widescreen gamers. 4:3 is so 2002. But people are slow to upgrade monitors (if you’ve got a working one already, it’s hard to justify dropping $800 on a 24-inch Dell widescreen display).

7: Sixty-four percent (1,127,369) have a microphone.
But we’re only interested in hearing what about 50 of them have to say while we’re trying to play Team Fortress 2.

8: Eighty percent (1,414,636) are on Windows XP, compared to 17% (309,205) on Windows Vista. Nine percent of total users are running DirectX 10-capable systems (Vista with a DX10-compatible videocard).
That right there is a pretty damning number. A year and a half into life, and Vista has yet to pick up one-fifth of the gaming population - it’s almost as if people have figured out that Vista offers no real benefits for gamers (except DX10, if you have certain games and the right hardware), and in fact makes games run slower compared to XP. Go figure.

May 21, 2008

Current page: Page 2

Prev Page Page 1