Last month, Steam's hardware survey showed a slight decline of 0.05% for Windows 10 in market share - its first drop since the operating system's launch. However, it appears that this was just a minor hiccup as the OS is now back on track once again, showing an overall increase of 0.64%, climbing to its highest ever market share of 49.33% on Valve's gaming platform.
47.98% of the Steam user base now utilize the 64-bit version of Windows 10, while 1.35% use the 32-bit version, accounting for a total of 49.33%. This is a 0.70% increase for the former and a 0.06% decrease for the latter.
Windows 8.1 64-bit was the only other iteration of Microsoft's operating systems to show an increase in market share, accounting for 8.70% of the user base - a 0.07% increment as compared to last month. In contrast, all other versions of Windows showed a stagnation or a decline in terms of user base. The Windows operating system maintained its crown as the most used OS among gamers, with 95.46% of gamers utilizing various versions of the OS.
OS X showed a slight decline of 0.02% and is now used by 3.52% of Steam's users. Only versions 10.12.0 and 10.12.1 showed a slight increase in terms of user base.
Surprisingly, for the first time in months, Linux showed a decline in user base. Although a decrease of 0.04% might appear to be minor, it still impacts the OS' market share heavily, keeping in view that it barely commands less than 1% of the market already.
Hardware preferences remained more or less the same as the previous report. 8GB of RAM is still the most used system configuration, accompanied by 1GB of VRAM. Primary display resolution on a single monitor remains 1920x1080 and the resolution on a multi-monitor setup still rests at 3840x1080. The NVIDIA GTX 970 is the most used video card and is being utilized by 4.97% of all Steam gamers.
Although many had expected Windows 10 to either stall or show a decline in user base, particularly after the expiration of the free upgrade deadline, it appears that the OS will continue its impressive run, in terms of user base. With that being said, it is important to note that Steam's monthly hardware statistics report is based upon surveys so it may not depict the situation with complete accuracy.
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