What Monitor Resolutions Do Steam Users Use Most?

2026

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About This Chart

Data Visualization Method

Data: Monthly usage shares from the “Primary Display Resolution” category of the Steam Hardware & Software Survey.
Period: January 2010 to June 2026. Data is available for 179 of the 198 calendar months in this period.
Selection: The dataset retains every resolution that entered the monthly top 20 at least once, producing a master set of 34 resolutions. “Other” is preserved in the source files but excluded from the default chart view.
Processing: Resolution labels were standardized to the “width x height” format without merging different pixel dimensions or reversing portrait values. Missing months and unpublished values remain blank; no interpolation or estimation was used.
Chart form: The animated ranking shows each resolution’s reported monthly share. Bar length represents usage share, while color groups resolutions into broad display classes such as HD, FHD, QHD, ultrawide, and 4K.

Creator's Note

This chart was made to place familiar desktop resolutions on one continuous timeline, so viewers can find their own display and see when it was common, growing, or gradually disappearing from the survey.

The ranking is less about declaring one resolution “best” than showing how the Steam hardware base moved from a fragmented mix of older formats toward a smaller number of dominant widescreen standards.

Data Sources

Steam Hardware & Software Survey — the official source used to verify the latest published month.
steamHWsurvey archive — the historical monthly dataset, including older pages collected through the Internet Archive.

Limitations

The Steam survey is an opt-in monthly sample rather than a census of every Steam user. Changes in the sampled population and revisions to Steam’s survey process can affect comparisons across time.

Nineteen months are missing between January 2010 and June 2026. These gaps are left unfilled, so movement across a missing interval should not be read as a measured month-to-month transition.

The public table may omit very small categories or group them under “Other,” and the visible resolution shares may therefore sum to less than 100 percent.

What This Chart Doesn't Show

A resolution’s share does not identify monitor size, refresh rate, panel type, multi-monitor setup, operating system, or the physical display connected to the computer. The chart uses only the survey’s combined “Primary Display Resolution” category.

The data cannot explain why a resolution gained or lost share, and it should not be treated as a measure of image quality, gaming performance, or monitor sales.