(Note -- aargh, third time of retyping this due to external distractions.:loser: )

Gaming driving hardware or hardware driving gaming?

I prefer to think of it as the Slinky theory (It's Slinky, It's Slinky, it's fun and a wonderful toy..... It's fun for a Girl and a Boy)

Slinky Theory in a nutshell:

Hardware pushes forward with a new breakthrough that is signifigant enough that current software becomes the bottleneck.

Software developers start working with and writing for the new hardware abilities, and write their games/software to totally max out the hardware, therefore putting the bottleneck back to the hardware.

Hardware developers then feel the push to make newer and faster hardware so that the games do not bog down due to hardware limitations, and when they do, the bottleneck goes back to the software . . .

And so on.


Ultimately it is always going to be that dance that brings about the development in the gaming hardware industry. If I had to pick one over the other, it would be probably the software driving the hardware.