Gamers love NVIDIA GPUs, Windows 10, DirectX 12, according to Steam stats
Gamers are notoriously at the bleeding edge of technology, and the first ones to adopt new hardware, and new software. Recent data from leading gamers network Steam, shows 54% of gamers use NVIDIA GPUs, while 26% run on a combination of AMD/ATI graphic hardware, and the remaining 19%, running on Intel integrated hardware.
On the software front, 29% of Steam users run their gaming consoles and gaming rigs, on Windows 10, with DirectX 12 running on 67% of all machines.
The long-standing relationship between Microsoft and NVIDIA has made DirectX 12 possible, leveraging the gaming experience considerably. 3D games are more life-like and realistic than ever, with rendering and lighting methods previously unavailable, or too graphically intensive for a real-time experience, such as blurred reflections, refraction, photonic particle tracing (Example: the reflected light bouncing off a shiny surface, onto another surface like the water reflections against the hull of a boat) and soon, global illumination, which simulates the behavior of light radiating from one object to another, creating diffused atmospheric ambiance.
DirectX 12 is capable of tapping into advanced hardware resources, and making them available to games requesting such features. The performance gain compared to previous versions of DirectX is considerable, especially when using dedicated GPUs. This ties in with the fact that 54% of gamers electing NVIDIA as their GPU of choice.
Mac versus PC
According to the graphic hardware in use by different segments of users, we can easily guess that 54% of Steam gamers operating a device using an NVIDIA graphic card, are in fact PC users. This is an easy guess, as Apple has actively replaced all NVIDIA discrete graphics options across all Mac products with AMD Radeon M9 GPUs, over the course of last year.
From this, we can deduce that the 26% of all Steam gamers using AMD/ATI graphic hardware, could very well be a mix of PC and Mac users, which may also include the 19% segment using integrated Intel graphics hardware, bringing the percentage of Mac users on Steam, up to 30%-35%. This is as safe assumption as it can be, considering that DirectX 12 support makes up for 67% of all Steam users systems.
Best gaming PCs
While the data doesn’t show specifically what type of gaming systems are on Steam, when it comes to PCs, it’s worth noting that while laptops were never very popular among gamers, the latest iterations of Asus ROG, Lenovo Y50 and MSI G Series gaming laptops, qualify as the perfect high-end mobile option for the hardcore gamer on the go.