I am growing really tired of hearing people complain about games and calling them broken when their hardware can't run the game. This is a PC, not a console. If you want to buy hardware once every five years and be able to run every game that comes out, you should buy a console. PC games on the other hand require periodic upgrades to your system (about once every year or two); not because the games are bad, but rather because the designers are constantly traying to push the boundaries of what is possible. This translates into better graphics, more going on on the screen at once, ambient movement, etc. All of this takes extra computing power to calculate, so consequently you need better and better hardware to run things at full detail levels. At the same time, this means that PC games quickly eclipse console games, especially in the arena of draw distances and the amount going on onscreen at once.

Space sims are an excellent example to look at. This genre has always had some of the prettiest graphics out there (at least until current-gen shooters) for one simple reason...There's not a lot actually happening, so the graphics can be ramped up on ships and planets and such without a loss of framerate. Compare that environment with the lush moving jungles of Crysis and you quickly see where the power goes.

I'm not trying to knock those who are running older rigs and know they have reduced gameplaying capacity and plan their gaming accordingly; they know what to expect and deal with it without complaint. The one's I'm referring to are the ones who have a single core processor, 256 MB nvidia 5-series video card and 512 mb of ram and b!tch because they can't run Fallout 3.

Now, I will be the first to admit that PC upgrades are costly. I tend to spend $200+ a year to keep my system pretty up to date (I've spent $600 in the past six months to replace mobo, RAM, CPU, and GPU). The upside to this is that my old parts don't go to waste. I keep family and friends supplied with hardware I've outgrown, and they're happy because they get free hardware upgrades that more than meet their needs.

There are two simple rules which will allow better gaming bliss: 1) Know your hardware and its limitations. Run a benchmarking program like 3dmark and watch it performing its tests. You will usually be able to see where your hardware is weakest and where it is strongest. If you see that soft shadows bring your system to its knees, then simplify the shadows in your game. 2) Upgrade within the same family. If you have an ATI chipset on your motherboard, buy an ATI GPU. This allows not only for running multiple gpus but also helps maintain synergy amongst your components

I guess I don't really have a point to this rant; I'm just sick of people blaming programmers for their own woes. I hate to chase anyone away from the PC as a gaming patform, but if you are unwilling to devote the time and effort to know your system and how to make games run well on it, then perhaps you should try a console instead. At least that way you can be certain that if you have an Xbox 360, you can play any Xbox 360 game.

I apologize if I offended anyone with this rant. That was not my intent. I just had to get that off my chest.