Interesting Statistics From Steam.

[Unit01]

The Survey I got asked about the card you used for HL2.

But maybe it still is the same list as for the other games. The 9800Pro and GF4MX were the highest on this list.

What I found really funny, is that there were more people with a ATI Rage Fury MAXX, than with a FX5800

That's unpossible

 

[Wallslide]

Look at all the people running 16bpp color.


I can take 1024x768 and even no AA. But 16bpp.. no way.

Perhaps some are just lazy
But yeah, there aint any reason to run at 16-bpp now :/
I vote for laziness

Actually, there is a very good reason to run Counter-Strike at 16-bpp. It's because at 16bit color, the smoke emitted by smoke grenades is much easier to see through. At 32bpp, smoke forms an impenetrable barrier

 

[MrGaribaldi]

Actually, there is a very good reason to run Counter-Strike at 16-bpp. It's because at 16bit color, the smoke emitted by smoke grenades is much easier to see through. At 32bpp, smoke forms an impenetrable barrier

What?! Valve has yet to fix this loophole?!?
That was one of the more annoying "problems" with HL and CS, and they've ported it to CS:S? bah!

Judging from the results of the survey, most people should be able to run CS:S with real smoke, so hopefully Valve will fix this with the patch/relase in dec....,

 

[karlotta]

Actually, there is a very good reason to run Counter-Strike at 16-bpp. It's because at 16bit color, the smoke emitted by smoke grenades is much easier to see through. At 32bpp, smoke forms an impenetrable barrier

What?! Valve has yet to fix this loophole?!?
That was one of the more annoying "problems" with HL and CS, and they've ported it to CS:S? bah!

Judging from the results of the survey, most people should be able to run CS:S with real smoke, so hopefully Valve will fix this with the patch/relase in dec....,

they didnt port it to Source. why do you say that.

 

[MrBond]

Actually, there is a very good reason to run Counter-Strike at 16-bpp. It's because at 16bit color, the smoke emitted by smoke grenades is much easier to see through. At 32bpp, smoke forms an impenetrable barrier

What?! Valve has yet to fix this loophole?!?
That was one of the more annoying "problems" with HL and CS, and they've ported it to CS:S? bah!

Judging from the results of the survey, most people should be able to run CS:S with real smoke, so hopefully Valve will fix this with the patch/relase in dec....,

Where in his post did you see the words "source"?

 

[MatiasZ]

Interesting that looking at the high-end section of video cards, the 6800GT goes first by almost 50% more than the X800PRO, and the 6800U and the X800PE are mostly tied (about 2% of difference between both)...

Is that indicative of HL2 performance? (I've lost track through the last weeks as to how each board "outstands" the other, i've instead focused on enjoying HL2, so I'm not educated on the matter).

 

[akira888]

Interesting that looking at the high-end section of video cards, the 6800GT goes first by almost 50% more than the X800PRO, and the 6800U and the X800PE are mostly tied (about 2% of difference between both)...

Is that indicative of HL2 performance? (I've lost track through the last weeks as to how each board "outstands" the other, i've instead focused on enjoying HL2, so I'm not educated on the matter).

Actually aren't XTPE and XT listed seperately? As of this time they are on either side of the 6800 Ultra's figure, so IFAICT the XT has double the install base of the 6800U.

But still the sample size is so small...

 

[KimB]

1.2 million copies so far... heh that's much better than DIII and coming towards Halo 2 numbers. PC gaming dead - yeah right

but on the other hand it is people who have steam, so it's HL1 players too... I would imagine.

Now how many of those purchased HL2, is a good question, and there must be plenty who have not done the survey either.

Yeah, I think you answered your own question there. This is a survey of all Steam users, not just HL2 owners. The existence of < 200MHz CPU's on the list should be an obvious testament to this.

 

[jvd]

And GTA has only, what, another 10X until they're close to a single Sims title?

I think for each respective series it's along the lines of ~35 to ~41Million, although The Sims have had a few more products than the GTA series, with the expansions and such. The point was that outlining a single extremely high-profile PC game that "only" sells 2 million to make the point he was making is somewhat short-sighted to say the least. I think if he would look at the distribution of the sales of all games it would show a different story.

Are you compareing the series of gta to the series of half life ?

THats 2 games vs what now 5 ? gta , gta 2 , gta 3 , gta sa and gta vc . Also there were expansions for .

Gta 3 and gta sa and vc haven't sold much more than 2 million copys each .

Actually halo 2 has out sold the new gta and by these numbers half life 2 is very close to the new gta numbers .

 

[DeanoC]

Gta 3 and gta sa and vc haven't sold much more than 2 million copys each .

You need to revise your GTA figures quite a bit up, last I checked GTA:SA solve 2 million copies in NA alone last month. Similar figures in Europe...

To be precise (NA totals to October 2004 (NPD))
PS2 GRAND THEFT: ANDREAS 2,053,900
PS2 GRAND THEFT AUTO:VICE 6,226,278
PS2 GRAND THEFT AUTO 3 5,451,119

So by my reckoning the GTA3 trilogy in NA alone has done 13+ million copies. And these figures are well under due to not counting a number of major retail sources (estimates are between 20% to 100% too low).

Its very safe to put 20 million copies across all formats, all territories.

(Just to put some context how big that is, Taking NA alone, Halo 1 and 2 have sold less together than the original GTA3 on its own!)

 

[jvd]

Yes but then you have to include counter strike , half life 1 and all its mods that were sold for money to the numbers .

And the last numbres i saw on gta sa were 1.8 .

 

[DeanoC]

Yes but then you have to include counter strike , half life 1 and all its mods that were sold for money to the numbers .

And together they have sold less than the XBOX version of GTA3/VC...

Your missing the point, I'm not saying that HL 1 and 2 didn't sell well, I'm refuting that GTA hasn't sold buckets loads.

To compare the sales of Halo and GTA is pure MS PR. Half life is a bit different its a 10+ million seller and really is in the same league as GTA.

 

[aaronspink]

And GTA has only, what, another 10X until they're close to a single Sims title?

I think for each respective series it's along the lines of ~35 to ~41Million, although The Sims have had a few more products than the GTA series, with the expansions and such. The point was that outlining a single extremely high-profile PC game that "only" sells 2 million to make the point he was making is somewhat short-sighted to say the least. I think if he would look at the distribution of the sales of all games it would show a different story.

Um, no. At least google before you guess. VC was the top selling GTA game so far with 8.5 Million sold. None of the other GTA games broke 6 million. So that would be a max before GTA:SA of ~26.5 Million copies.

The Sims is at a little above 10 million copies (this just just "The Sims" no any expansions). Don't have data for the expansions. BTW, The Sims is the only non-nintendo game to break 10 million.

For kicks, just the mainline Mario games (Mario, Super Mario, Mario 64) are over 100 million. Talk about printing money.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

 

[Pete]

Speaking of printing money, how long till we see Zelda:OoT, Wave Race, and F-Zero ported to the Ninty DS?

Those GTA numbers are flabbergasting, but then I just have to think of SM3's 50M sold and I'm brought back to reality. Still, until Half-Life 2 hits consoles, it's probably not going to be in the same league as GTA, no?

 

[hstewarth]

My personal opinion about these results:

First, I would be very curious if they include all the copys that were sent out to customers that purchase ATI cards.

I was deeply concern about getting this game because I knew it would be heavly ATI bias - but some of recent non-ATI reviews, show my card - 6800GT doing very well.

I think that HL2 could even get more growth if they came out with an update to make it Performed on NVidia's cards in method that it should. It only helps the popularlity of the game to work better on NVidia cards. Especially with the success of 6 series.

I am not playing the game currently, I had a problem with sound looping, ( same as Star Wars Battlefield ) nad got the hardware issue and now I can play Star wars. . I may try it HL2 later.. But that it is just me. But the big one is coming for me - LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth.

 

[Florin]

Actually aren't XTPE and XT listed seperately? As of this time they are on either side of the 6800 Ultra's figure, so IFAICT the XT has double the install base of the 6800U.

But still the sample size is so small...

Yes, they are listed separately.

I didn't expect this for Half Life 2:

NVidia GeForce 6800 7,838 0.60 %
NVidia GeForce 6800 GT 20,275 1.55 %
NVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra 4,293 0.33 %
32856 = 2.48 %

ATI Radeon X800 PRO 13,819 1.06 %
ATI Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition 4,369 0.33 %
ATI Radeon X800 XT 4,287 0.33 %
ATI Radeon X800 SE 1,162 0.09 %
23637 = 1.81 %

You can add the X300 and X600s and there's still fewer last gen ATIs than just the 6800s. X700, 6600 and 6800LE are in the 'Other' category - still too few to be listed separately.

 

[DeathKnight]

1.2 million copies so far... heh that's much better than DIII and coming towards Halo 2 numbers.

1.2 million copies since the game was released. Halo 2 sold through 2.5 million copies in 24 hours. Big difference.

 

[Fox5]

Look at all the people running 16bpp color.

I can take 1024x768 and even no AA. But 16bpp.. no way.

Hey, 16bpp is another 2x AA you can add on.

Though without the 16 bit post filters 3dfx and matrox had(ati has one as well or at least used to, but I don't think it's anywhere near as aggressive) I can't see anyone actually using 16 bit color with acceptable results. Beyond that, I'm not even sure if 16 bit + post filter would be good enough for today's games...sure it worked for quake 3 when the extra 40 fps was more worthwhile than some slight color banding(and texture compression caused more graphical glitches than 16 bit did anyhow), but unless you're playing the gta games I'd imagine current games easily exceed the limits of 16 bit + post filter having an unnoticable difference from 32 bit.

 

[Star_Hunter]

I really wish they would release offical sale numbers for hl2....

 

[Florin]

Talking about sales numbers, are there any numbers on last-gen video cards?

Nvidia has expanded their lead in the Steam survey to 2.6% with a total of 35,346 6800-class devices out there, versus 1.82% for ATI with 24,852 X800-class surveyed HL2 players.

What's happening? Are Steam's numbers skewed and somehow not representative? Aren't enough X800s finding their way to the shelves? Or do consumers consider Nvidia's offerings more compelling?