typical hardware for non-typical players 
I would think that HL players are above average hardware wise.
“Non-typical players”?
Considering hl2 is about as mainstream as you get (heck, my DAD is playing it), what are typical pc players playing if not hl2?
My computer is about as typical as she goes then.
Thanks for the link. This info is extremely useful for me because that’s the market I will be aiming for with my game.
Indeed; that’s whtat I thought it would be useful for - providing debates over “what should I be targetting” with actual concrete figures, at least for the hardware 
I’m willing to bet quite a lot that most gamers don’t play FPS games at all, and that fps games are those that typically demands the most from your computer, hardware wise.
I, on the other hand, have some far more accurate logs Although I haven’t measured physical RAM or CPU speed as these are more or less irrelevant to my games. I’ll dig them up when I get the time and post 'em.
Cas
How are your logs “far more accurate”?
I disagree, perhaps the not as there main game but overall I know few ppl who buy / play games often that never play an fps.
next to that current stratigy games don’t seem to demand also quite some ‘power’
in MMORPG ppl seem to tent to more eye candy
and higher demands from the pc.
lineage2 is even based upon unreal technoligy http://www.unrealtechnology.com/flash/technology/ue2.shtml
I would say this is a good indication of the typical system.
[quote]I, on the other hand, have some far more accurate logs
[/quote]
But different market. Contrast is useful.
[quote]…far more accurate…
[/quote]
Yeah actually that’s full of shit The logs I’ve got fairly accurately describe what a more or less random selection of about 20k casual downloaders had.
Last time I looked they’re about 1-2 generations behind the majority of the Steam results, which is about right.
Cas
Im a proud and steam registered owner of an original copy of HL2 so my machine is in that statistic. Its something like duron 1ghz, 512mb ram, network speed 512k, radeon 9000 pro with 64mb vram at the time i registered (now have a 9600pro with 256 mb vram), windows xp sp2, dvd, free hd 10gb to 20gb, total hd 80gb. So it gets close to the average on everything except for cpu which i didn’t felt the need to upgrade it yet.
HL2 is among the most sold and played games of all time so you can bet that list is pretty much accurate.
sure its accurate, but relavent? depends on who your audience is. If you are writing web games or anything for casual gamers, it would be silly to assume your target audience will generally have the same kind of computer as HL2’s audience.
I expect that most of us aren’t quite targeting those same AAA customers 
Cas
[quote]sure its accurate, but relavent? depends on who your audience is. If you are writing web games or anything for casual gamers, it would be silly to assume your target audience will generally have the same kind of computer as HL2’s audience.
[/quote]
Right. So, what are you going to do? Stick a finger in the air and guess?
No, you need some stats, and you need current stats, and … you also need precise stats. You can extrapolate as you wish.
At the same time don’t confuse “Knowing your audience” with “the people who play your game ONLY play games like yours”: a vast number of web-based games players can be expected to have games-playing machines…
[quote]If you are writing web games or anything for casual gamers, it would be silly to assume your target audience will generally have the same kind of computer as HL2’s audience.
[/quote]
Then you must conclude that HL2 statistics are not your thing and should go look somewhere else for the info you need.
If you are writing web games then anyone with a computer and an habit of using the internet is your target, which is alomst everyone with a few exceptions that can be ignored.
This may sound crude but it fits in the equation you will have to use if you want to sell your games. Making games for fun is nice but if you can make money with them is even better.
If only…
Cas