I'm sure all the shitty web cafe setups out there really skew these results.

10% using a 8800 card? Someone should have shown this to Crytek...

"- System language: English (58.73% of users)"

This one's surprising.

@Spenze:
I never thought about that, astute observation Spenze.

I believe it's 16:10 in general for standard Widescreen monitors.

The whole 2.3 to 2.69GHz thing is skewered as well, I guess. It's not like a 1.86GHz Core Duo is worse than a 2.4GHz Pentium IVc, seems like an unfair value to put it out.

Win XP %81 (including me)

Gamers know that Vista is crap :D

@KroKan: There was a post yesterday that proved it was on par with xp so...

The low amount of wide screen isn't odd as well. I'm using a perfectly good 19" 4:3 display. Sure, widescreen displays are available everywhere nowadays but where does this idea come from that I should just dump my current screen for a wide version? I rather wait till this one breaks. Then I'll upgrade.

It'd be hilarious if it said 'Operating System: OS X (1 person)'

@KingBroly: I know a lot of non-native english speakers (like me) use English as system language despite having a different primary language in real life. Mostly to avoid silly translations... just liked how dubbed movies usually suck ;)

@Zho: Well... seeing how Steam has 0 (closer to negative...) support for OS X, that would be a surprisingly high number...

I'm wonder if I'm part of the Other by using steam occasionaly in wine under Linux.

@Laughing_Gas:
That post was a test with a Radeon card. I use a 8800, so it doesnt prove anything for me.

I used Vista. It sucked bullocks and even if it gets as good as XP in times of performance, I am fine with XP.

As long as there are no "real amazing DX10 lighting" games out there, Ill wait for Windows 7(We all know that there is no such thing and DX10 brings nothing over DX9)

I have had my pc for almost 4 years, my x800 is crying. I seriously need to upgrade :(

"Single core CPU (59.14% of users)"

That's a shame. Dual cores are soooo good. Hell, I used my 4800+ to watch HDTV over a PCI card and play Portal at the same time.

~50% have greater than 150gb hd space.
~50% have less than 69gb left.
the internet is for pr0n I tell you!

but seriously 3.11% have 16bpp desktop settings? someone needs to upgrade!

I find it interesting that while 73.88% of people use a 4:3 monitor, the distribution of screen resolutions shows that around 58.08% of those used on the primary monitor would be considered "widescreen" resolutions.

Are people just using strange resolutions not suited to their displays?

I REALLY need to upgrade my box, I'm currently running a 6800GT *sigh*

"- NVIDIA GeForce 8800 graphics card (9.35% of users)"

It's a shame, really. They are going for ~150 beans these days (8800 GT). No excuse to have something terrible (unless your compy is just too old for PCIe...)

@The Whaleman: I can run Steam under Darwine, but I'm just too lazy to get the games running.

These stats are very useful for analysing the present state of people actually playing good games on PC.

and maybe this is one of the reasons why Valve is not interested in creating an updated engine.

@The_nub_next_door: Why? I think 10% is quite good

blah 8800 :P
I can get an radeon hd 3870 512 mb for 100 euro :)
I don't see why what's the big deal...
for that money it's a steal..
unless you don't own an pci-e x16 compatible motherboard..

then you'll have to upgrade some more...

How many of them drink Coors Lite?

Let's play a game:

Guess my components

[img.photobucket.com]

Wow, I'm the default Steam gamer.

@KroKan:

Well real gamers and tech nerds know Vista actually isn't worse than XP and has already surpassed any OS before it in reliability and performance.

@sovietspartan: Whoa! Are those the uber awesome transformer figures above your monitor?

C.. can I be your friend?

@sovietspartan: Looks like it's one of the ASUS P5E motherboards? That should mean a Core 2 Duo/Quad CPU of some description. I can't see your RAM and different P5Es support DDR2 or DDR3. That looks like a Razer Barracuda sound card?

I don't recognise the cooler on the graphics card but presumably the red PCB means it's an ATI of some sort. Given that it's a dual slot card has it had an aftermarket cooler added? With a 6-pin power cable is it something from the x1900 range?

Am I close? :)

@Oldboy26: It's not that Vista's bad, it's that they removed pretty much all the improvements over XP except for Aero (which 75% of "Vista-capable" computers sold can't actually run).

In other words, it's the same crap with a shiny new coat of varnish. Why bother upgrading?

- 4:3 display (73.88% of users)
- 1280x960 desktop resolution (39.18% of users)

how is that possible? or is the 39.18% only based on the widescreen display users(which should be far more logical)

3 people have 127 cpus!
where can I find such a monstrosity?

I know tons of gamers, and not many of them have a widescreen monitor unless it's a laptop. 25% is actually higher than I'd have expected.

@StormdragonBlue: What he said.. The percentage for widescreen displays is not surprising at all.

@Plakband: People running 16:9 resolution rates on a 4:3 monitor is possible, and it wouldn't be the most stupid thing I've ever seen done (but it's pretty high up there).

"Windows XP (80.94% of users)"

lol

Are they throwing in your standard 5:4 LCDs into 4:3 or 16:9? I think that might explain some of the weirdery.

No surprises here at all.

@Ouzak: People running 16:9 resolution rates on a 4:3 monitor is possible, and it wouldn't be the most stupid thing I've ever seen done (but it's pretty high up there).

That is actually wrong, you can display any resolution on your monitor below the max resolution your monitor supports as long as its a CRT monitor. All you have to do is squish the image until it matches the specific resolution you want to use. If you can tolerate having a smaller wide-screen resolution squishing it in the monitors setup menu, you have no need to upgrade to a monitor built specifically as a wide-screen monitor. In fact, I'm actually using my 19" 4:3 CRT to play GTA 4 at 1280x720 and it works just fine. There is only one exception to this. If the game you are playing doesn't support wide-screen resolutions natively (Battlefield 2 on PC is an example) the game will look like you are looking through a fish bowl sort of.

I'm retarded, I just woke up, I miss read your comment.

@Oldboy26: Wow you have a low estimation of a reliable system. Vista's biggest problem is they changed stuff purely to try a justify the upgrade, so you're left with an OS that is a pain to support and gives you no benefits.

As for reliability, I've seen no difference. Vista BSOD's when it feels like it, just like XP. IF Vista didn't come with the laptop I'd skip it and wait for the next windows version.

I see there are 5,888 other faithful brethren across their userbase that flog a ATI Mobility Radeon 9000-class GFX card. It can be a shady experience, what with my laptop getting warmer than a slagged Xbox360 during TF2 matches.

@Jabberslops: I don't think you read my comment correctly. I agree, it is possible, and that's what I said.

Also, you can run a widescreen resolution on a 4:3 LCD too, it just makes everything look stretched.

I still think it's a pretty stupid idea, except for your situation. If you're running a PC game, why would you want to lose screen space?

Quite interesting - its a pity most devs won't take heed of such results and mold their game around those hardware specs.

@Spenze: what difference does that make if that's what people are using to access Steam? It's still viable information for them.

@BaseVilliN: I have a friend that is a gamer but still uses AGP so his options are limited. And there haven't been any games that appealed to him enough to upgrade. Then he bought a PS3 and I dont think he's touched his PC for gaming in a while.

@LX: Servers.

Quite surprised at this really. I have a mid-range system, but according to that I'm in a minority because my PC clearly kicks the arse of what most people are using. Weird.

Although maybe the reason so many don't have 16:9 is because a lot of the main widescreen monitors are, in fact, 16:10?

@noboard: I have no idea where all this crap about Vista being a bugbear came from but let me assume you are talking about the 64bit version, which alot of games still don't support? Vista 32bit is a fucking dream. I wouldn't trade it for anything, tbh.

@Plakband/Ouzak: 1280*960 is a 4:3 resolution.

@noboard: If your XP and/or your Vista crashes, it might not be their fault. In fact, I would bet money it's your hardware. Try memtest86 to see if it's the ram, it breaks a lot.

I haven't seen a blue screen since the days of Windows Me

@Lemming: 64-bit Vista is a nightmare if you have a high-end NVIDIA graphics card. Honestly, it runs fine until I actually put some gaming-quality drivers on it, then the entire thing just turns to shit. 32-bit Vista is considerably better, but I still get crashes, even on less demanding games like RtCW. It's just NVIDIA's drivers (although ATI could have the same issue - anyone?), to the best of my knowledge. Really, they blow.

Game on XP = Fast
Game on Vista = slower

It's as simple as that. The statistics given in a previous Kotaku post don't reflect the reality of actually playing the games yourself. Try it, see for yourself - you'll uninstall Vista from a desktop machine unless you're attracted to its bright lights and 'newness'.