By Shawn Rider

Valve has partnered with gaming ISP, Speakeasy.net, to poll the PC gaming public. Just what is out there? What kinds of computers do you folks have? How fast is your connection? How much RAM, baby? The results are a bit surprising if you've heard the lowest common denominator rhetoric of web design courses and instructional manuals. But gaming is an ever-evolving industry, both for producer and player, and those who do not keep up do not, can not, keep playing. In a survey of over 300 thousand PC gamers, Valve and Speakeasy.net found these startling facts: Only about 20% of gamers use a 56Kb or slower modem connection. About 53% of gamers use a broadband (DSL, cable, ISDN) connection, while a full 25% use a T1 connection. Over 75% of gamers have between 256MB and 512MB of RAM in their PCs. About 40% of gamers have processors operating at between 700Mhz and 1000Mhz. The Riva TNT2 and GeForce 2MX video cards are the most popular; each are sported in just over 22% of gamers' machines, making up about 45% of the video cards out there.

PC games have long been known for their close relationship to the hardware industry. As new PC titles are developed, gamers are forced to upgrade their systems. There was a perception, a sort of conventional wisdom, that PC gamers were often running a step behind game developers. However, this data seems to refute that idea. It looks like gamers are staying nice apace of the developers. Stats like these far outweigh most system requirements listed for new titles.

If you would like to see the actual numbers of the survey and draw your own conclusions, click here.