I have quite a few computers (both Mac and PC, the Macs of necessity for work).
Because I'm into flight sims (which historically have always pushed the requirements of PCs), I always tend to keep at least one PC at the high end of performance scale, so I can almost guarantee that I don't need to look at the minimum or maximum hardware required specs on the box of a piece of software.
However, I don't like the way games and sims are going because of this trend for more eye candy simply because the computer can display it. Both the recent titles, ARMA and SH4 are incapable of running on one of my laptops simply because it doesn't support Pixel Shader 2.0, which is a preposterous notion when you consider that the same laptop is capable of running FSX with all the autogen scenery cranked up, something which would bring a good many high-end PCs to their knees. In my opinion many devs and software companies are shooting themselves in the foot sales-wise when they make requirements like that mandatory, and incapable of being switched off to allow lower end machines to run the software, as I'm sure there are many who would like to buy the odd title which catches their eye, but are not about to upgrade their computer just to play one game.
Computer progress has currently run into a developmental brick wall owing to manufacturing limitations, which is why we are seeing multi-core processors, these being nothing more than an attempt to side-step the problem. However, for many applications, the multi-core capabilities will be a dead end simply because using a multi-core processor requires the data you process to split and be calculated on several cores in isolation from one another. Effectively this is like running half your application on one PC, and half on another one. For sims (and indeed a lot of other applications) this is a no-no. Put simply, since you cannot have say, the artillery from a ship which is firing at your submarine calculated on one core, while the position of your sub is calculated on another core, as the artillery data needs the positional data in order to know whether it's hitting you, which it can't because it doesn't have that positional data. This is the essence of the problem with multi-core stuff.
Oddly enough, since this problem exists, it may well lead to an end in the trend for more eye candy, and a resurgence of better AI, as these kind of routines could be where the desire for more impressive sims and games will be forced to place developmental work if we are at a graphics limitation point. I certainly hope so, as it is quite clear that eye candy aside, SH4 is not much of an improvement on SH3, althoug I concede that it has appeal for many Americans who were sick of donning a cap with a Swastika on it.
Currently, it's apparent that (eye candy whores that we all generally are) eye candy for the screenshots and box art pictures are where the marketing has placed its store. And it's also apparent that with this being a desireable selling point, if not a good long-term idea, too many development hours are being spent on this part of games and sims, and not enough on the actual advancement of AI and good old fashioned addictive gameplay structure.
Reports of the death of PC games and sims continue to be greatly exaggerated however, as evidenced by Apple's desire to tap into this market, and as more tools become available to make constructing this software ever simpler, it is opening the way for companies to tap into this market. Five or six years ago, the flight sim market was a veritable graveyard of abandoned titles as bigger developers sought to jump on the FPS and online MMORPG cash cows. But these days we are seeing more sims arrive, and that's definitely where the PC shines in comparison to the console.
It just needs computer software developers to wake up and smell the coffee.
Chock