Steam’s Hardware Survey, which is updated every month, is always an interesting source of statistics about the general trends among PC gamers in terms of hardware and software. We’ve seen a lot of news, statistics, facts and figures about the usage of operating systems over the past week but how does that all relate to gamers? Well according to Steam’s survey Windows 8.1 is gaining popularity with gamers. Windows 8.1 gained 0.89% while Windows 7 declined 0.88%, interestingly Windows XP also gained overall share while Windows 8 and Windows Vista continue their respective declines.
In the grand scheme of things Windows based gamers have declined as OSX and Linux users have increased – but this is only by a small margin. Surprisingly, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 64 bit is now more popular than 32 bit Windows 8 or Windows 8.1. Windows 7 64 bit is still the most popular operating system for gamers but increasing numbers of gamers are now choosing 64 bit Windows 8.1, possibly to access new graphics features like DirectX 11.2 support, or just to stay “up to date”.
Source: Steam
Images courtesy of Steam (Valve)
My OS of choice is Linux, Though it doesn’t have support from the hardware companies by way of graphics drivers, and also there’s that it’s such a small market that it’s very much left completely to the wayside. The last couple of years though has seen a Vast improvement in support by mainstream game devs (and even indie devs, like the nice folks at Exosyphen whose games I also play).
So the short version I prefer Linux, I do however use Windows when I need to for gaming reasons, nothing would make me happier than not needing to boot a windows partition, but not everything can be forced to work in Linux.
Its because all of the gaming pc’s now come with it….not by choice.
Because PC gamers update cycles are a lot quicker than the average PC user
It’s also worth noting the improved support for SSD’s and the like.
There is an improvement to the overall system performance using Win8.
Most my friends have moved onto Win8 and have just put up with the issues that come with it for the greater good.
I Personally will be waiting for Win9 if i can.
EDIT – Wait, is Windows 7 32bit gaining ground??? really????
have had 8 /8.1 since it first came out never had problem with it . learning curve to operate it as with any os steam worked great from day one…
windows 8.1 is 15x faster than windows 7 . took me about 11 seconds to learn and my wife about 20 seconds, there is no downside to it . All of my games worked with it , except 3 that was ancient myst retail cd and civ 1 and 2 .