Hardware stats

[Anonymous]

Here are some interesting stats.

It’s from a survey carried out by Valve and is based off of over 800,000 participants.

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

Note that the actual results are skewed, as owners of HalfLife2 etc will of course own fast, powerful computers.

A few surveys have been carried out by Shockwave 3D developers, whose viewers include non-gamers / general web surfers ( well, even this could be slightly skewed… Shockwave is on 2 out of every 3 computers, which is quite a vast number but not an inclusive one ).

Interestingly enough, while 3D cards are now prevelant, a significant number of computers ( I think just under 10% ) still run without a 3D graphics card ( ie software only )!!! Out of the 90%, well over half probably don’t have a computer which has pixel or vertex shader capability ( including the fairly high powered laptops and computers we use at work in the CanDo offices for 3D projects ).

So if you’re thinking of creating an all-encompasing card game, don’t be relying on the user having pixel shaders as it’ll greatly impact on your audience :) For hard-core games of course, you can assume that they have all the bells and whistles ( albiet it’s a smaller niche market )

Mal

[Anonymous]

I cannot help but notice that the German, as usual, beat us…

It’s interesting to see the graphics card, too. I am so glad to see my babies at the top (9600 and 6600). It kinda reassures me that not everybody has top notch, 500$ worth gfx cards, as my geeky friends would have me believe.
Same with the RAM, it’s nice to see not everybody can afford a gig or two… I suddendly feel less inadequate with my meager 512.

The one stat that REALLY pisses me off is the Net speed.
When 75% of the surveyed are English speaking, it becomes hardly relevant. It’s like asking the price of petrol in your country (well, maybe not right this minute, but a few months ago) … the number bias would make it seems like “everybody” pays cheap fuel for their cars. Rubbish.
Well, unless all you care about is your American market, I suppose :?
It would have been really interesting to see Net speeds for Americans compared to Non Americans.

[Author]

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