Windows 11 Grows in November Steam Survey Results As Linux Coasts at 2% and English Overtakes Chinese
Steam's monthly hardware and software surveys provide a decent picture of what hardware and software gamers rely on to play their favorite games—at least those on Valve's game platform. Since the launch of Windows 11, it has been a somewhat reliable way to track the adoption of the new Windows version, and, as the official cut-off for Windows 10 support draws near, one would expect Windows 11 to pick up steam, especially among gamers, where Windows is the dominant OS. The results of the November Steam Survey are in, and while not much has changed on the hardware front, it seems like Microsoft is indeed wearing gamers down when it comes to Windows 11 adoption. Despite seeing a decent uptick in Windows 11 installations, the overall Windows market share dropped, even if almost imperceptibly, while Linux and macOS both saw a slight uptick in adoption among Steam gamers. As expected, Windows remained the dominant platform for gamers, but Windows 11, specifically, saw growth of 4.18%, while Windows 10 lost 4.15%, which is almost an exact 1:1 match, indicating that gamers are largely staying on Windows when they finally decide to move on from Windows 10. Overall, Windows lost 0.05% market share, compared to Linux, which gained 0.03% and macOS, which grew by 0.02%.
Valve's SteamOS Holo was the most popular Linux version in the survey, but it, too, slid by 0.28%. Of course, the hardware split for Linux is representative of the software side of things, which is to say: It's mostly just Steam Decks. As expected, most of the video cards and CPUs in the Linux results were AMD GPUs, with well over 36% of the sampled Linux gamers using AMD GPUs, even disregarding the obvious bias introduced by the AMD-powered Steam Deck hardware. The most popular NVIDIA GPU on Linux systems running Steam is currently the GeForce RTX 3060, at a mere 1.46% of the market share. Meanwhile, on Windows side, 5.03% of gamers are using the GTX 3060, with the next most popular GPU being the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU, at 4.92%.
Valve's SteamOS Holo was the most popular Linux version in the survey, but it, too, slid by 0.28%. Of course, the hardware split for Linux is representative of the software side of things, which is to say: It's mostly just Steam Decks. As expected, most of the video cards and CPUs in the Linux results were AMD GPUs, with well over 36% of the sampled Linux gamers using AMD GPUs, even disregarding the obvious bias introduced by the AMD-powered Steam Deck hardware. The most popular NVIDIA GPU on Linux systems running Steam is currently the GeForce RTX 3060, at a mere 1.46% of the market share. Meanwhile, on Windows side, 5.03% of gamers are using the GTX 3060, with the next most popular GPU being the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU, at 4.92%.