How Many PC Gamers Can Actually Run The Witcher 3?

I was thinking of something small to write today while I'm being a good (bored) student in class. I decided to browse the Steam hardware stats and see what the state of computers and PC gaming is today. While looking there I noticed an overwhelming percentage of mid--end GPU's and CPUS which does seem obvious. However to me it begged the question: How many people can actually run the most modern titles at ultra?

The game we will test is obvious to anyone who games... And no, it's not Crisis 3. Today I want to see how many PC gamers can actually run Witcher 3 at 1080p on ultra.

The Witcher 3

Source

I chose to compare at 1080p as this is still the most common resolution according to the Steam Survey:

The first job that we have to do is state assumptions and what the requirements for 1080p ultra settings in The Witcher 3 are. Here is a list of the assumptions I am making:

The Steam population accounts for all people playing The Witcher 3.

I will be assuming everyone who uses the required GPU or better with also have a CPU/RAM capable of running the game.

I will also be cutting out components with a tiny market share, as I want to keep this time efficient.

I will not be able to account for Xfire/SLI setups due to Steam limitations.

Every GPU is the same. I know that some 1060's are better than others, but once again I have no data on this.

With those stated, lets get on with this! So the first task is to find what the TRUE minimum system requirements are. I state true as many games over-account for the specs they will need. GTA V claims to need 12gb of video ram on ultra... I could run it with 4gb (everything maxed). Therefore we need to first find the true specifications required.

I will be using this article and some forums such as this. The general consensus is that a GTX 970+ is required to max the game at 1080p. Further, a quad core and 8gb of ram is a minimum to reach this performance (in general use).

Since video card is the most important part of a gaming PC, I will start there. This is a list of every GPU with a market share of over 1% as according to Steam:

The next step is to find all of the GPUs that are equivalent or better than a 970. I know this is controversial, and compute benchmarks aren't the same as gaming. However it is a good indication, and I will be using Passmark to see which GPUs are better performing than a 970. Here is the list that I found:

Now, which of these cards are on the Steam list above? Let's have a look!

GTX 1060

GTX 970

GTX 1070

GTX 1080

Adding the percentages for each of these cards together, we get a total of 18.96%, or close enough to 19% to be rounded. If we add a rough estimate of GPUs under 1% usage that are better than a GTX970, we can guess that the total will be under 25% (most likely around 22%).

So, assuming that each gamer with a GTX970+ Also has a quad core and 8gb+ of ram (which most do), then around 1/5th of all PC gamers on Steam can run The Witcher 3 on ultra settings at 1080p. Many more people can play The Witcher 3, but only few of us can play it in its full visual glory.

This was a rather un-official report and there are definitely more factors to consider. But I wanted to do a little something with the time I have spare in class. Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think too!

(All images in this post where taken from here unless otherwise stated)