Just so ya know.. the latest in moving targets
by James Brad Barnette · 12/15/2008 (11:58 am) · 7 comments
As you may or may not know Valve software posts the results of their hardware survey from steam clients every 6 months and the latest release has been posted.
These numbers are important to the rest of us since we obviously don't have the install bases to track our selves.
they are posted Here
As you can see multi-core is now the majority and Direct X 10 cards are approaching half of the market share
and surprise surprise Nvidia is dominating still.
These numbers are important to the rest of us since we obviously don't have the install bases to track our selves.
they are posted Here
As you can see multi-core is now the majority and Direct X 10 cards are approaching half of the market share
and surprise surprise Nvidia is dominating still.
About the author
#2
Granted, I've always adopted Windows OS's at n-1 just for stability reason, so I don't know what is normal for adoption rates generation to generation.
12/15/2008 (1:11 pm)
So for ever 10 DX10 GPU's on Vista, there are 7 DX8 GPU's on all Steam-supported OS's? And of all DX10 GPU's, only ~47% have adopted Vista? Doesn't that look bad for Vista 2 years after launch?Granted, I've always adopted Windows OS's at n-1 just for stability reason, so I don't know what is normal for adoption rates generation to generation.
#3
The point is that DirectX 10 is something that should be supported. should it be required? no of course not but it should be supported. It is not like the DirectX 10 numbers are going to get smaller. They will only increase. Every system shipping today will come with Vista and a DirectX "compatible" card they wont "ALL" be Nvidia cards. But most will. I mean even the on board Intel graphics today are DirectX 10 compatible.
Plus XP was an upgrade that for the most part would run on the existing machine that you had. and you could upgrade for about $100 or less. that is not the case with Vista. We are approaching a point on PC that the mac hit a few years ago when a lot of the legacy support will be swept aside it will be painful but it is something that must be done to further the platform. This is something that happened a little with Vista but in the end the accounts had their way. What resulted was a OS that ship with inaccurate specs and a lot of legacy features that we not originally intended to remain in the OS. It I think that with windows 7 you are going to see more of this. the systems that are Vista capable will be ok during the upgrade for another large chunck of the machines out there will be considered obsolete.
plus I think that you are seeing "Gamer" numbers there there is a lot of things that were done for encryptions sake and ease of use that games just don't like and don't want to deal with. I would be willing to be that a lot of those numbers with DX 10 cards actually shipped with Vista and were at lease setup to dual boot XP if not re-installed to XP.
For instance for the most par windows 2008 Server is the same OS as Vista but the difference is there are not all of the layers of encryption that are their for DRM on movies and music. all that kind of stuff is gone. and Guess what Windows 2008 is wicked fast and stable. I had read somewhere that movies with DRM or DVDs or Blu-rays are decrypted and re-encrypted something like 3-4 times between the source and the monitor under Vista.
For the most part Vista users give up a lot of their performance just so music and video companies can feel that all that can be done is being done about Piracy. I think Microsoft feels their pain but they have realized that it is not Microsoft's job to protect other companies assets at the cost of OS sales.
From what I have read Windows 7 will correct a lot of this, and be a desktop OS that is more in line with what windows 2008 server is today.
Vista and DirectX 10 are the way of the future and are being adopted but, you have to understand that there is a lot more market saturation than there was when XP came out. So the Adoption will go a lot slower.
Plus PR wise the vista launch was handled horribly only recently has MS started to market back against Apple. for the most part you had almost 2 years of people demonizing Vista completely unanswered.
that and there was the whole deal with HP and the Vista certified system logo fiasco. "In case you don't know when Vista launched HP was siting on a crap load of computers that would not have been Vista certified because the specs were too low. well long story short HP bullied some bean counters at MS and that trickled down hill and the specs were lowered so HP could stick a bunch of Certified for Vista stickers on systems that should never have Vista on them." Thus giving a Ton of users the impression that Vista was this horrible OS that should never be put on anything. When in fact was the systems never should have had Vista on them in the first place."
Anyway yeah Direct X 10 needs to start being addressed as soon as the OpenGL and mac stuff is released
12/15/2008 (3:56 pm)
Actually alot of people didn't come to XP till SP2 came out. I remember trying to get people to switch over to it and heard all of the same things you hear about with Vista now. lots of I'll never use that and it is too buggy.The point is that DirectX 10 is something that should be supported. should it be required? no of course not but it should be supported. It is not like the DirectX 10 numbers are going to get smaller. They will only increase. Every system shipping today will come with Vista and a DirectX "compatible" card they wont "ALL" be Nvidia cards. But most will. I mean even the on board Intel graphics today are DirectX 10 compatible.
Plus XP was an upgrade that for the most part would run on the existing machine that you had. and you could upgrade for about $100 or less. that is not the case with Vista. We are approaching a point on PC that the mac hit a few years ago when a lot of the legacy support will be swept aside it will be painful but it is something that must be done to further the platform. This is something that happened a little with Vista but in the end the accounts had their way. What resulted was a OS that ship with inaccurate specs and a lot of legacy features that we not originally intended to remain in the OS. It I think that with windows 7 you are going to see more of this. the systems that are Vista capable will be ok during the upgrade for another large chunck of the machines out there will be considered obsolete.
plus I think that you are seeing "Gamer" numbers there there is a lot of things that were done for encryptions sake and ease of use that games just don't like and don't want to deal with. I would be willing to be that a lot of those numbers with DX 10 cards actually shipped with Vista and were at lease setup to dual boot XP if not re-installed to XP.
For instance for the most par windows 2008 Server is the same OS as Vista but the difference is there are not all of the layers of encryption that are their for DRM on movies and music. all that kind of stuff is gone. and Guess what Windows 2008 is wicked fast and stable. I had read somewhere that movies with DRM or DVDs or Blu-rays are decrypted and re-encrypted something like 3-4 times between the source and the monitor under Vista.
For the most part Vista users give up a lot of their performance just so music and video companies can feel that all that can be done is being done about Piracy. I think Microsoft feels their pain but they have realized that it is not Microsoft's job to protect other companies assets at the cost of OS sales.
From what I have read Windows 7 will correct a lot of this, and be a desktop OS that is more in line with what windows 2008 server is today.
Vista and DirectX 10 are the way of the future and are being adopted but, you have to understand that there is a lot more market saturation than there was when XP came out. So the Adoption will go a lot slower.
Plus PR wise the vista launch was handled horribly only recently has MS started to market back against Apple. for the most part you had almost 2 years of people demonizing Vista completely unanswered.
that and there was the whole deal with HP and the Vista certified system logo fiasco. "In case you don't know when Vista launched HP was siting on a crap load of computers that would not have been Vista certified because the specs were too low. well long story short HP bullied some bean counters at MS and that trickled down hill and the specs were lowered so HP could stick a bunch of Certified for Vista stickers on systems that should never have Vista on them." Thus giving a Ton of users the impression that Vista was this horrible OS that should never be put on anything. When in fact was the systems never should have had Vista on them in the first place."
Anyway yeah Direct X 10 needs to start being addressed as soon as the OpenGL and mac stuff is released
#4
12/15/2008 (5:27 pm)
Quote:??? No actually the other way around there are 4+ DX10 GPUs in the market for every 1 that is DX8 or older.
So for ever 10 DX10 GPU's on Vista, there are 7 DX8 GPU's on all Steam-supported OS's?
#5
12/15/2008 (6:23 pm)
@James, How exactly does steam get the survey data? Directly from the Steam client?
#6
I didn't include the XP clients w/ DX10 GPU's as I was waxing philosophical about Vista adoption. Vista adoption is usually deliberate, DX10 GPU's I would assume is an acillary biproduct of the routine hardware cycle.
@Britton
Not to answer James question for him, but yes. Steam is a huge data collection infrastructure. It collects considerable amount of stats about the clients as well as a rediculous amounts of data from within each game should the developer chose to add the hooks (hardest boss, most deaths to each enemy, achievements, average time spent looking at Alex's boobs).
12/15/2008 (9:13 pm)
@James,Quote:??? No actually the other way around there are 4+ DX10 GPUs in the market for every 1 that is DX8 or older.%21.45 (DX10 GPU's Running Vista) / %15.01 (DX8 GPU's) ~= 10/7
I didn't include the XP clients w/ DX10 GPU's as I was waxing philosophical about Vista adoption. Vista adoption is usually deliberate, DX10 GPU's I would assume is an acillary biproduct of the routine hardware cycle.
@Britton
Not to answer James question for him, but yes. Steam is a huge data collection infrastructure. It collects considerable amount of stats about the clients as well as a rediculous amounts of data from within each game should the developer chose to add the hooks (hardest boss, most deaths to each enemy, achievements, average time spent looking at Alex's boobs).
#7
sorry mis-read ya there though you said for every "1" not every "10". My Mistake
12/16/2008 (6:56 am)
@Brian Wilson sorry mis-read ya there though you said for every "1" not every "10". My Mistake
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