Monday, November 6th 2017
Driven by Chinese PUBG Players, Windows 7 Now Most Popular OS on Steam
Steam's October survey has brought with it some interesting tidbits and reversals regarding the state of the world's OS shares. The latest such survey from the company shows Windows 10 lose its crown as the most popular OS for gamers, shadowed by a resurgence of Windows 7. Microsoft may be looking for increased Windows 10 market share throughout the world, but there's one country that has been the most troubling for the company's efforts: China. Remember that Microsoft had to introduce its own China Government edition of Windows 10 to the Chinese government, or otherwise risk the country not to transition to its new OS. However, it seems that that fact has led Chinese people's trust in the Microsoft OS to decrease even more; and absent of access to the China Government edition for regular customers, they're simply choosing to stay within the confines of Windows 7.
All of this seems pretty academic, so let's get some numbers here: Windows 10 shed 17.38% points in October, down to a 28.6 percent share, with the 64-bit version accounting for 28.23% of that share. At the same time, Windows 7 has gained 21.47% points in the same month, climbing to 65.46% of share (63.60 percent for the 64-bit build, and 1.86 percent for the 32-bit edition). Where's the connection to Chinese users here though? Well, take a look at the Steam OS language stats for the same month: simplified Chinese rose by 26.83% up to 56.37%, against a decrease in practically all other languages, and a very considerable 13.4% drop in English.But where's PUBG in all of this, though? Well, that slight piece of the puzzle you can glean from Steam Spy's analysis of PUBG's player base, which shows an adequate (roughly) 600% percent increase in player count from around 1 million players in August to around 6 million as of October. Around 3.1 million of those entered the scene starting in September. PUBG is simply a phenomenon in China, and Chinese users really seem to be trying to make the most of it while they still can: reports peg the game as being in line for a ban from the Chinese government, as a Chinese Gaming Association has deemed PUBG to go "against Chinese values and ethical norms."
Sources:
Steam Hardware Survey, via TechSpot, Steam Spy, CGICG
All of this seems pretty academic, so let's get some numbers here: Windows 10 shed 17.38% points in October, down to a 28.6 percent share, with the 64-bit version accounting for 28.23% of that share. At the same time, Windows 7 has gained 21.47% points in the same month, climbing to 65.46% of share (63.60 percent for the 64-bit build, and 1.86 percent for the 32-bit edition). Where's the connection to Chinese users here though? Well, take a look at the Steam OS language stats for the same month: simplified Chinese rose by 26.83% up to 56.37%, against a decrease in practically all other languages, and a very considerable 13.4% drop in English.But where's PUBG in all of this, though? Well, that slight piece of the puzzle you can glean from Steam Spy's analysis of PUBG's player base, which shows an adequate (roughly) 600% percent increase in player count from around 1 million players in August to around 6 million as of October. Around 3.1 million of those entered the scene starting in September. PUBG is simply a phenomenon in China, and Chinese users really seem to be trying to make the most of it while they still can: reports peg the game as being in line for a ban from the Chinese government, as a Chinese Gaming Association has deemed PUBG to go "against Chinese values and ethical norms."
86 Comments on Driven by Chinese PUBG Players, Windows 7 Now Most Popular OS on Steam
However windows 7 is outdated and doesn't use the latest CPU threads/cores as it should. In some games I have worse performance when GPU isn't the bottleneck (high refresh gaming).
So imo the best option for gamers is Windows 8.1. Yeah the start menu is bad but thats a minor problem to fix. Windows 10 also has awful mouse input/acell/smoothing even when you turn windows acel off. And even worse, it changes on every update.
P.S.
W10 is the most secure Windows ever made. And no, I am not joking. I can and will agree that the user interface, especially Settings panel is very much work in progress and sucks, but do not say baseless rumors about security. No, it won't be, unless you accept it. Also, your W7 is NOT going to get upgraded anyway anymore. Like it wasn't for the last year already.
Windows 10 runs on a bunch of separate modules. It is flawed and has too many vulnerabilities. That´s why hackers are literally toying with it, and that´s why no big company is wanting to use it anymore. The biggest ones are either migrating from 7 to Linux or just upgrading to 8.1.
You guys must understand that Windows 10 only has a good amount of users, because it was free for a long time and you can get it for free from MS store (altho with customization limitations). That´s all. In the past every Windows would cost like 200 bucks in my country for a Retail copy, so upgrading was a slower process. Windows 10 is one of the worst editions since Windows ME.
Bottom line folks; Windows 10, in comparison to Microsoft's greatest version of Windows[XP] and it's finest[7], is a crap-show. And the real, willful adoption numbers bare that out. Not to mention the ever increasing number of users who are either back-tracking to Windows 7 or abandoning the Windows platform altogether for Android, iOS and others. There is a reason Android is now the most used OS on the planet.
A quick simple example: Vulkan. Better than Directx in everything. Yet DX11 still dominating the market in 2017. Silly isn´t it?....
Linux is better than any OS, simply it doesn´t get the same support because of money. That´s all. From F1 2017 to Dota 2, CS GO, TF2, all of them run better on Linux and with better frame times. But 99% of the games still require DirectX. However a closed device like a PS4, only uses openGL and Vulkan, no DX, and still runs the same games you run on Windows with DirectX. Go figure.
All about money.
PS: Windows 7 support ends in April 2020, so may as well move now. Haha
Hahahahahahaha
AAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA
Oh, the delusion is strong with this one. Google and MS both declare what data they're collecting upfront on their properties, sure, but have you ever though about the sheer amount of data Google brings in via undisclosed analytics on all your favourite websites? Including our very own techpowerup? Or by serving up scripts that other sites need to run at all (like imgur.com)? or by every youtube embed? Google is the absolute best at data collection over the global internet, and only facebook really keeps up, mostly via sheer user numbers and some seriously sketchy abuse of cookies and page elements.
For the most part, you can't turn off the more insidious Google tracking - at best you evade it some of the time. Or you could stop using about 2/3rds of the internet.. that works too.
As for the code, Google only open-sources some of it. Most of their code is fully closed-source and kept very, very secure to the best of their ability. I mean, you ain't getting any of the GMail code, for example. Or anything from Google Play Services on your Android phone. Or Maps. You get the gist of it.
Besides, with how much we use the internet, how is tracking your web habits not even worse than tracking what apps you're running? I mean, for myself, my app usage looks something tlike this today: Firefox, Thunderbird, Firefox, Firefox, Firefox, Steam -> Path of Exile, Firefox, Firefox, Thunderbird, Firefox, etc. Same here (uMatrix is quite excellent). Sadly, not everyone blocks all such scripts, and when it comes to transparency, please, do point me to somewhere on TPU where Google Analytics is explicitly mentioned to be active at all. Or pretty much any mainstream site out there. Also, if you're willing to use a blocker in your browser, why are you not willing to use a blocker/remover for Windows?
Keep in mind as well, by blocking "unnecessary" parts of the website, we're also denying TPU and other sites from ad-based income (and you can be damn sure that the ads have as much tracking as can be stuffed in em), which makes us utter dicks to the site owner. Food for thought. Block ajax.google.com on gsmarena.com and tell me how well it goes for you (hint: it breaks the loading of high-res pictures in the image viewer). Other sites get even more broken, like humblebundle (no pictures at all) when you block apis.google.com.
These are just 2 examples I got by scrolling through my currently open tabs. I've seen sites that demand ajax.google.com, apis.google.com, gstatic.com, and www.google.com all at the same time, which is downright impressive at showing how crappily they're coded, but this is how the web is these days, sadly. I do it, until I get forced to allow Google through (yay smaller sites without their own CDN). As a paid GSuite user, I don't mind the Google spying all that much because I trust (current) Google to keep my data safe and private enough (I trust current MS too, for the record). Maybe delusion was a tad strong. Definitely less-informed though, I reckon.
EDIT: Also, if you know where Google has published the source code for anything that isn't orchestration tooling or core support libraries, please, do share. I could really use a self-hosted GMail...
Vulkan and more interesting in globality, programming and more flexible, less stress on it, it has the big advantage of being compatible with win 7, 8, 10
The ultimate point is that Microsoft is still playing their game like they're kings of the OS/software hill when the reality is they're not and continuing to lose ground. They're playing hard-ball with the general public and we're not taking any of their nonsense. The Chinese general public apparently aren't either. Microsoft's ship is sinking and they refuse to acknowledge and accept accountability for their own failures.
So, who is toying with what? Some 1337 hackz0rz, because they said so on some forum?
Yes, tell me again, how business are moving to Linux, especially Fortune 500. I would love to see that. Upgrading to 8.1? Very funny.
Device Guard, Credential Guard, improved memory protection and so on. They did not even exist on W8.1 or older versions. How again MS is invading your privacy? By gathering logs about wheter OS setup was successful? xD
Upgrades =/= updates. I am pretty sure we were talking about OS upgrades, not monthly patches. So no, W10 upgrades stopped year ago, unless you use (or abuse) assistive technologies upgrade option.
And again, Credential Guard, Device Guard, Defender Advanced Threat Protection and so on.
Privacy is a very big deal. It is as important as fundamental rights. The problem is that populations have been socially engineered to be unaware of its significant importance in our lives. If you don't believe that fine, but surely you can recognize the lack of emphasis and education on the matter.
Yes, there needs to be a compromise between individuals and companies when interacting with each over online mediums, but this needs to be a discussion that ends in an understanding for all parties involved.