As readers of this B3d forum will note, lots of people try and use the word "gamer" as a type of narrowly defined catch-phrase intended to justify their opinions about certain kinds and brands of computer hardware. (I speak specifically here as to the handful of recent, now-locked threads in this forum which need no identification...
I often wonder what motivates forum moderators to shut down some kinds of free and unfettered commentary, so long as threats and overt profanity are avoided. I wonder what they're afraid of, exactly. But that's a topic for another day.)
I define "gamer" this way: one who plays computer games. In talking with many, many people over the years who play computer games, I've always been impressed by how much more knowledgeable they are about the games they play than they are about the hardware they use to play those games. So my premise here is that the "gamer" is defined by the games he plays as opposed to the hardware he uses to play those games. IE, gamers don't have to have certain kinds of hardware to be considered gamers, and opinions to the contrary are simply invalid. As I wanted some kind of objective criteria against which to measure the validity of my own opinion as to the matter, I decided to check here:
http://steampowered.com/status/survey.html
Here are a few of the facts I gleaned, and you might wish to add your own observations to the discussion. Of the 836,099 people surveyed at the time I looked...
*The number of people who play HL2 with < 512mb's of ram in their boxes is almost exactly equal to the number of people playing with >512mb's but < 1Gb of ram. The two categories combined equal ~84% of the total. I fit into the 1Gb or > percentage, which is a mere 2.43% percent of the total.
*>99% play with a single cpu, including me.
*~86% of the group using Intel cpus are running them clocked < 3Ghz
*~96% of the group using AMD cpus are running them clocked < 2.3GHz. I fit into the ~4% of the AMD group running a cpu clocked at 2.3GHz or >.
*3d-card group is led by the >19% of the group which plays the game with either an ATi-based 9600 or a 9800. Just behind the Radeon categories come two nVidia categories, the FX5200's and the GF4MX's, which together comprise slightly > than ~14% of the total. I fit into the x800 category, which weighs in at a mere 1.33% of the total number of 3d-cards used by the group.
*Slightly under 90% of the group has less than 250GB's total HD storage capacity on their HL2 gaming machines. I fit into the 250GB's or > greater category here, which is, of course, just over 10% of the group.
What I think is clear through the recitation of these HL2 survey findings is that the high-end enthusiast's configuration is decidedly not the configuration used by the overwhelming majority of HL2 gamers. Of special note to me is the high percentage of HL2 players using GF FX5200's and GF4 MX's which are, by any "enthusiast's" measure, inadequate to the task, but are nevertheless being used by gamers to play HL2.
The only real conclusion to be reached, then, is that any editorial comment which seeks to paint the "gamer" as someone who only buys and uses high-end, enthusiast-grade hardware is editorial commentary completely unsupported by the facts, and thus completely wrong. So I would suggest that the next time you read a hardware review which criticizes hardware simply on the point that it isn't "enthusiast grade" and therefore "isn't for gamers," you might wish to purvey the HL2 survey if you want to understand just how wrong such sentiments really are. There just isn't any particular hardware configuration required to play games, and it seems to me that the HL2 survey proves it conclusively. I think that somewhere along the way some of our most colorful self-appointed pundits have confused overclocking and frame-rate bar charts with gaming in general, and I think that's a pity.
I often wonder what motivates forum moderators to shut down some kinds of free and unfettered commentary, so long as threats and overt profanity are avoided. I wonder what they're afraid of, exactly. But that's a topic for another day.)I define "gamer" this way: one who plays computer games. In talking with many, many people over the years who play computer games, I've always been impressed by how much more knowledgeable they are about the games they play than they are about the hardware they use to play those games. So my premise here is that the "gamer" is defined by the games he plays as opposed to the hardware he uses to play those games. IE, gamers don't have to have certain kinds of hardware to be considered gamers, and opinions to the contrary are simply invalid. As I wanted some kind of objective criteria against which to measure the validity of my own opinion as to the matter, I decided to check here:
http://steampowered.com/status/survey.html
Here are a few of the facts I gleaned, and you might wish to add your own observations to the discussion. Of the 836,099 people surveyed at the time I looked...
*The number of people who play HL2 with < 512mb's of ram in their boxes is almost exactly equal to the number of people playing with >512mb's but < 1Gb of ram. The two categories combined equal ~84% of the total. I fit into the 1Gb or > percentage, which is a mere 2.43% percent of the total.
*>99% play with a single cpu, including me.
*~86% of the group using Intel cpus are running them clocked < 3Ghz
*~96% of the group using AMD cpus are running them clocked < 2.3GHz. I fit into the ~4% of the AMD group running a cpu clocked at 2.3GHz or >.
*3d-card group is led by the >19% of the group which plays the game with either an ATi-based 9600 or a 9800. Just behind the Radeon categories come two nVidia categories, the FX5200's and the GF4MX's, which together comprise slightly > than ~14% of the total. I fit into the x800 category, which weighs in at a mere 1.33% of the total number of 3d-cards used by the group.
*Slightly under 90% of the group has less than 250GB's total HD storage capacity on their HL2 gaming machines. I fit into the 250GB's or > greater category here, which is, of course, just over 10% of the group.
What I think is clear through the recitation of these HL2 survey findings is that the high-end enthusiast's configuration is decidedly not the configuration used by the overwhelming majority of HL2 gamers. Of special note to me is the high percentage of HL2 players using GF FX5200's and GF4 MX's which are, by any "enthusiast's" measure, inadequate to the task, but are nevertheless being used by gamers to play HL2.
The only real conclusion to be reached, then, is that any editorial comment which seeks to paint the "gamer" as someone who only buys and uses high-end, enthusiast-grade hardware is editorial commentary completely unsupported by the facts, and thus completely wrong. So I would suggest that the next time you read a hardware review which criticizes hardware simply on the point that it isn't "enthusiast grade" and therefore "isn't for gamers," you might wish to purvey the HL2 survey if you want to understand just how wrong such sentiments really are. There just isn't any particular hardware configuration required to play games, and it seems to me that the HL2 survey proves it conclusively. I think that somewhere along the way some of our most colorful self-appointed pundits have confused overclocking and frame-rate bar charts with gaming in general, and I think that's a pity.
