Interesting Statistics From Steam.

Or maybe the ATI 9500-9800 series cards play the game well enough that most people don't see a need to upgrade. 8)

 

Well, a Steam survey is such an odd sample set. For instance, the recent surge of 9800 numbers might well be simply b/c of everyone cashing in their vouchers with HL2's release.

But, given the reviews, I don't think it's at all odd that the GT is outselling the Pro. And ATi doesn't have anything X800 to compete with the 6800 in the retail space (I'm not sure how many X800SEs Dell sold, though, and whether a Dell customer would be less likely to participate in the survey than an aftermarket one).

 

In my case it is certainly because the old ATI cards run HL2 so well.
I can run it just fine with ALL options at highest, including 4xFSAA and 16AF at 1024*768.

HL2 is the sort of game that I would upgrade my machine for, but to my suprise it wasn't necessary.
Had I had a NV3x card, there is no doubt that I would have upgraded my videocard for HL2.

 

Same for me. I have yet to upgrade the 9700pro I got way back when it came out. So far HL2 and it are doing well. I normally upgrade the video once a year...so I am way behind..

 

My main problem now, is that I am thinking about upgrading my CPU 1800+ XP to something like a AMD 3400+ or 3500+.

But that means that I have to buy a mobo with AGP for my 9700 Pro, and then replace it again for my next videocard which might only be available in PCI-E

Unfortunately all mobo's with both AGP and PCI-E are crap

 

The interesting thing to remember about HL2 is that Steam sales probably accounted for a sizable portion of their sales, as a lot of people wanted to play CS:S now and those ATI HL2 vouchers were still around. Of course, I'm pretty sure retail figures wouldn't include such sales.

Another interesting thing is that because of Steam, Valve knows *exactly* how many HL2 copies have been activated, because that's the only way you can play the game legitimately (and illegitimate users probably weren't going to buy it).

 

Probably quite true but then those people are lost customers for all of the cards of the current generation, including Nvidia. That doesn't quite explain why Nvidia is winning (in this statistic).

 

It might explain it to some extent since a 9800 owner is more likely to pick up an x800Pro than a 6800GT if they decided to upgrade. However, FX owners were sure to jump all over the 6800s HL2 or not.

 

Or maybe people bought their 6800s to play Doom 3. - Like me.

Went from a 9700PRO to a 6800GT

Cheers
Gubbi

 

But their numbers won't include the buyers who've failed to activate the game >:]

 

hows NVDIA doing this generation.

 

what all 150? this is a non issue

 

X800SE is more in competition with 6800LE, not the 6800 or even the 6600gt.

 

I thought the X800SE sold for about as much as a 6800, ~$300?

 

Acccording to Pricewatch yes, that's true....a bit more than $300 (6800's have dipped to just below $250, on the cheapest end).

 

Not too sure what these stats are for (HL2, HL, CS, etc) but did anyone else notice the ogl vs d3d stats?

I know HL was ogl and d3d but I forgot what people mostly used.

 

Since the original Half-Life was based upon some amalgamation of the Quake 1 and 2 engines, you can be pretty sure that OpenGL was the best way to run the game on pretty much any hardware.

 

I didn't think the performance was bad on the GF 6 series of cards. I know on the 59xx/58xx cards the performance is terrible in DX9 mode, but I don't think you can find many people to argue that the 5800 was truly a DX9 card..
Regardless, I guess the same can be said for Doom 3 and ATI cards.

 

I agree, the same can be said for Doom3 and ATI cards.

I don't think you can find many people to argue that the R300 and R420 series are truly Nvidia cards.

 

So, let me follow your advice and say the same for D3 and ATi cards:

"I know on the R3xx cards the performance is terrible in ARB2 mode, but I don't think you can find many people to argue that the Radeon 9700 was truly a ARB2 card."

You think?