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Quoting: Liam Daweou go by averages. [...] Going by the Steam survey, over 50% have 16GB or less RAM.

Well, if 50% have 32GB, that's pretty much your median user. I fully agree (and said so above) that it's silly to design for hardware without an installed basis, but the 32GB RAM I'd give a pass, personally. In the end you don't design games around the slowest PC out there either, and people shouldn't reasonably expect to be able to run the newest visual wonders on a 10 year old potato.

12GB VRAM is still way out there, when only a handful of GPU models have more than 8. In the end, your point still stands. It's pretty ridiculous.

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I know price rises suck, but look outside the box for a moment. The problem is really a question of viability.

Sure, they have a certain level of purchase mass due to the amount of users, but you split that across each individual game and then Humble as a business need their own cut to remain a viable business too. Add taxes into that and it gets reduced even further. Even the current £11.49 really is not a lot when split across 8 games.

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Quoting: KimyrielleTo be fair, 32GB RAM have been sort of standard for gaming PCs for a while now. Also, these decisions were very likely made before the RAM prices went out of control, which started only a few months ago.

Not as long as you might think, and you don't design games for the top-end. You go by averages. Part of the point of PC gaming is having settings to bring things down to more acceptable levels is it not? Going by the Steam survey, over 50% have 16GB or less RAM. It's absolutely mad to make 1080p at 60FPS need a minimum of 32GB lol, locking away over half your potential sales for what people expect from a game.

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They may have hoped for that 50xx refresh that ended up getting postponed for at least a year.

Well, typically you don't design games for hardware that's not even out yet. You go for stuff that has been out for 3-4 years, so there is an installed basis. Even IF the upgraded 50XX GPUs become a thing (there are rumors that they might get canceled), the game will likely launch before any of these has reached a customer.

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Wasn't long ago that Choice was £8 for a month (i.e. A 44% inflationary increase). Also, the bundles used to be much better value propositions, for instance only paying £1 for the lowest tier and getting 3 titles. This cash grab followed their change of ownership.

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Is anyone else having issues with source engine games on steam deck lcd?

Unless with HL2 I have shader detail set to 'low' it will just crash

L4D2 crashes if effects aren't set to 'low'

And Portal crashes if shadow detail isn't set to 'low'

Anything higher then low on these specific settings seems to make them crash, also l4d2 still crashed when set to proton (tried various versions)

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Quoting: BrokattIt may be something unique for Steam Controller? I will post a pic when I get home. It's similar to the one @mr-victory linked to.

When looking for a post with a pic, I did come across a post about the warning appearing with a Steam controller.

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I have this idea of making a game about fighting computer viruses, and the difficulty settings are Linux and Windows, and then the Linux difficulty doesn't have any enemies 😁

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Quoting: KimyrielleTo be fair, 32GB RAM have been sort of standard for gaming PCs for a while now. Also, these decisions were very likely made before the RAM prices went out of control, which started only a few months ago.

What I don't get is the 12GB VRAM. Even in the 50xx series, NVidia stubbornly refuses to put more than 8GB in most GPUs, so what's the target audience here?

GPU chop shop customers?

https://www.techpowerup.com/340880/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4090-gets-a-48-gb-mod-and-step-by-step-tutorial

They may have hoped for that 50xx refresh that ended up getting postponed for at least a year.

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Nice! Gotta love these huge improvements for same hardware.

Although: that said, I'm not sure I notice/care that much about raytracing just in general. It makes things look SLIGHTLY just a tiny bit better at a huge frame cost? But maybe with this the frame cost will be minimal so that slightly better look will be okay?

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Surely no one would ever do that, especially not one of the most ubiquitous high-fidelity game engines out there in their widely-adopted ray-traced global illumination solution...

That's some great snark there.

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Ooh! Looks great! I just got a similar game during the Steam Winter Sale called Desktop Survivors 98, and it's been pretty fun.
[Desktop Survivors 98 (Steam)](https://store.steampowered.com/app/3339780/Desktop_Survivors_98/)

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To be fair, 32GB RAM have been sort of standard for gaming PCs for a while now. Also, these decisions were very likely made before the RAM prices went out of control, which started only a few months ago.

What I don't get is the 12GB VRAM. Even in the 50xx series, NVidia stubbornly refuses to put more than 8GB in most GPUs, so what's the target audience here?

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Well, my systems (I use KDE exclusively) are configured to never go to sleep when plugged in. Screen will turn off after 1 hour without activity. But I have never had it doing so while playing a game or watching something.

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GoldenEye for N64 run like crap, but it was a revolutionary game on a limited platform. What this game have of so special to need so much RAM?

I will not be surprised if the answer is DRM related.

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Yeahyeah, it also says you need Microsoft Windows to play this; nobody needs Microsoft Windows to play games anymore in 2026. 😆

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Requirements for 1440 / 4k: Cray Supercomputer? Easily accessible I'm sure right.

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Quoting: Phlebiac

Quoting: CatKillerIn case you'd like a graph

Thanks for making that, it illustrates two perhaps surprising points:

1) Steam Deck usage has stayed relatively flat - or more accurately, has scaled at the same rate as total Steam usage.

2) macOS usage declined for years, but in recent times it has scaled at nearly the same rate as desktop Linux. I wonder what factors are involved with that; I don't think Valve has done anything major on that front, and to my knowledge Apple hasn't done anything to improve things for gaming (they are actively hostile to it in some ways).

1) yeah, Valve went into it pretty cautiously the Steam Deck is a pretty niche product as you expressed before.
2) That's part Microsoft, part Valve and part Apple. Most consumers consider the choice Apple(expensive, but less espionage) and Windows(espionage, but cheap and capable). Microsoft has been behaving pretty shitty lately including becoming more expensive(Win10 EOL). Apple finally started nearly caring for gaming(Game porting toolkit). Also Valve has been sponsoring Apple gaming, since around the same moment they started sponsoring Linux gaming(MoltenVK), modifying open source is just easier.

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These are about as confusing as buying Hitman if you inspect a bit closer.

Min. VRAM = 8GB. Makes sense in 2026. Recommended nVidia card: GTX 1660. Which is a 6GB card.

Recommended VRAM: 12GB. 1080p aside... sure, let's roll with it. Recommended nVidia card: 3060Ti. Which is an 8GB card.

Maybe it's about the features, maybe they tried to account for the bandwidth, maybe they rounded up, who knows. GTX 1660 does not make sense to me as an example even then, though.

If they're as specific as this they should've gone further, because right now I have no idea what runs the game and how. IOI might have benchmarked 3060 vs 3060Ti, but few consumers have the luxury, so it'd be helpful to have a comment on the VRAM situation there given that's the example they went with (I realise it's probably driven by the Steam survey. It's still not helpful to me).

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The Pitchford strategy - just buy a RTX 6090 Ti bro or you're not a gamer.

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Quoting: wytrabbitSo you're saying I can run it on my Steam Deck?

🤔🤣

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I, for one, thank the Devs for eliminating a game from the to-buy list. I think I'll limit myself to 'steamdeck compatible' titles (or equivalent) going forward as I am not confident I could replace that super-computer level of hardware if the PC dies and not break the bank. I can play Witcher 3, BG 3, New Vegas, etc ... Should last me a while.
Thanks Liam, spot on reporting.

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So you're saying I can run it on my Steam Deck?

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At this point that kind of requirements are in a very poor taste.

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That's very sad. Not only the state of the game, but devs ridiculous decisions.

They have literally no vision for the game and they try to squeeze in everything they possibly can to make it even bearable. People feel it, and that is why it's not going too well.

TrackerGG challenge is a disaster - it only benefits players who are playing anyway. This will not bring too many new players at all.

Reworking battle royale (which sucked hard in Splitgate 2) in 2026 won't really make any impression on anyone either.

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Great to see actually, and that is in spite of the fact that my newest Linux convert declined the Steam Survey on their PC.😁

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyI'm going to hazard a guess that in Feb 2025, the Steam Survey showed a great big surge in Simplified Chinese. 😁

+20.88%.

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Quoting: Naib

Quoting: mattaraxiaThe trend is insane.

10% by 2030 or so seems inevitable now. I think at that level, it's the point where people can largely stop caring.

I mean, if you just want to see Microsoft lose OK that won't be done.

But at 10%, you'll be able to buy a mouse or a monitor or whatever, and assume its firmware is on LVFS. Any game publisher not bothering to at least test with Proton, will be truly an outlier.

From the consumer's point of view, pragmatically, it'll be about the same as 50%.

ASSUMING the bestfit is correct... yes 2030 for 10% is possible

External Media: You need to be logged in to view this.

Stop the count! https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/01/valve-amended-the-steam-survey-for-december-2025-linux-actually-hit-another-all-time-high/

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Maybe they’re trying to push people toward GeForce Now 🙄

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Quoting: Phlebiac1) Steam Deck usage has stayed relatively flat - or more accurately, has scaled at the same rate as total Steam usage.

In particular, the proportion is staying flat at around the same level as total Linux was for years, but the release of that high profile Linux gaming demonstration device has changed the conversation; which has led to game devs paying much more attention to that device than they did to the rest of us before, and to the subsequent growth of desktop Linux.

Quoting: Phlebiac2) macOS usage declined for years, but in recent times it has scaled at nearly the same rate as desktop Linux. I wonder what factors are involved with that; I don't think Valve has done anything major on that front, and to my knowledge Apple hasn't done anything to improve things for gaming (they are actively hostile to it in some ways).

I expect that growth is from people leaving Windows 10. If Microsoft are going to make you buy a new machine anyway, do you really want that machine to be a Windows machine? For a chunk of people it seems that the answer is "no." Especially with how well-regarded Apple's Arm chips have been - I think the bump before the decline in Mac share was from the sentiment around the M1 chip.

I'm pleased that Mac is growing again. The bigger the non-Windows market, the more incentive there is for game devs to avoid single-platform tooling. Although it is a shame that Apple makes it hard to use one solution (like Vulkan, say) for all platforms. Apple having Vulkan on Macs and Sony having Vulkan on the PS6 would make multiplatform game dev much more straightforward.

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