Incorrect Data Calculations in Steam Hardware Survey

[Threive]

Not sure where to post this, this may be in the wrong spot since it's more of a bug. Mods feel free to move it.

I just completed the steam hardware survey and noticed an issue with it. My laptop has duel video. Intel and Nvidia. I'm running Linux with Bumblebee installed. For you windows guys, this means the steam client runs on my intel graphics chip but when i lauch a game via primusrun it launches with the Nvidia 860m.

This means when the survey ran it only detected what video card was running steam and not what would actually run a game, so it concluded i only had an Intel video card. Just thought that i would point out that the survey is under reporting nvidia cards and making it seem like more people are running games with intel cards than there actually are. This probably affects quite a few people running intel/nvidia configurations on laptops.

[Birdy.J]

No if you have a dedicated GPU in you system your mobo only uses the dedicated GPU.

[Threive]

Incorrect.

I suggest you do some research into Bumblebee for linux.

It allows you to launch applications in linux on the video card of your choice. Many laptops have integrated intel and discrete nvidia chips installed. i beleive the windows driver set is called Optimus, but i might be wrong. But it probably is a bug that affects Optimus users as well.

[𝕙.𝕓𝕒𝕣𝕜𝕒𝕤]

The survey couldn't detect my 4K resolution either. So question is how reliable are the results?

[Threive]

Apparently not very!

[Birdy.J]

At the time of the hardware test did you use the program to just use a specific graphic? What I see here is that steam only detect what setting and configuration you are currently using.

[Threive]

This is what i'm getting at. The hardware survey only detected what video card Steam was running on, not what video card Games would run on.

To get it to detect the correct video card i would have to adjust my launch options to force steam to run on the nvidia card for the survey to see it.

I'm unfarmilier if Optimus (windows) would even allow you to do this.

The only solution i could see is if the survey detected you were running a laptop, request you launch a game and then detect the video card off of the launch.

It would be interesting to see in the survey the percentage of people running laptops, vs the percentage of users running Intel video and see how much of a correlation there is. Currently the survey is saying Intel has a 17.56% slice of the pie, and i'm pointing out that that number is probably way out to lunch and mostly all laptop users such as myself who don't actually game on an intel chip.

[CursedPanther]

Haven't taken the slightest notice of this hardware survey in years to be honest. Not sure if any game developers will use the data in their game development either. You would expect them to have their own professionals to evaluate hardware capabilities and capacities properly.

[phaserbrain]

I have never submitted the survey because it has never found the correct specs. It says my machine is 15xx by 8xx resolution, but it's really 1920x1080.

[Darren]

I long ago set Steam up to run on my Nvidia card on my laptop it is pretty easy just going into the Control Panel and setting the default for Steam to the Nvidia card instead of the Intel one.

[Smoko Frodo]

Today I ran the survey and it only detected my Intel HD 4600 but not my Gigabyte Radeon R9 280 OC. So yeah, the survey is broken. Not surprised by the results that say most PC gamers have weaker PCs than a PS4 or Xone.

[Satoru]

Originally posted by Smoko Frodo:

Today I ran the survey and it only detected my Intel HD 4600 but not my Gigabyte Radeon R9 280 OC. So yeah, the survey is broken. Not surprised by the results that say most PC gamers have weaker PCs than a PS4 or Xone.

The survey is fine

Single data point problems are not what the steam survey is used for

[derpygalaxy]

The survey is outdated too though, they are using data from many users that took the survey years ago (such as myself)

[Tux]

Originally posted by Threive:

Incorrect.

I suggest you do some research into Bumblebee for linux.

It allows you to launch applications in linux on the video card of your choice. Many laptops have integrated intel and discrete nvidia chips installed. i beleive the windows driver set is called Optimus, but i might be wrong. But it probably is a bug that affects Optimus users as well.

that is not fully accurate.

The switch between video card and integrated has to be changed at the motherboard (so machine startup menu). So even though it can be back and forth its not by any stretch of the imagination anything someone would consider a toggle

[Mivo]

Even if you use Windows, you can choose whether a game uses your integrated or dedicated video system.

But from a statistical perspective, it doesn't make much of a difference to the survey's results. Some samples are bound to be incorrect. How many of the millions of users use a dual-video system laptop combined with Linux?

[vexx]

GGG