>>>My checklist:
>
>LOL at the sorting algorithm wars. ;-)
>
>On the TRS-80 there was a game called "Engineer" that wouldn't run on a base machine with 4K. You needed the LII with 16K. Apart from specialist graphic or processing apps, when was the last time you had to check specs to make sure something would run on your machine? ;-)
>
>When writing software we did care about memory usage and used 1-byte Restart vectors to save 2 bytes per call, as did the OS that hogged RST for its own use. It was no wonder Gates said that 640K with the PC is an awesome memory allocation and the loss of the discipline of conservation was hammered home when I encountered a printer driver whose bloat exceeded the total memory availability just two year earlier. Those were the days when tech advances were constant and it made sense to upgrade. These days the only reason to upgrade in te PC world is because hardware is fading or a peripheral needs it.

Almost every game seems to present a processing challenge somewhere. One of the advantages of the games console (ps3 etc) if its a game for that console it will run out of the box.