Does anyone think PC simulators will ever look this good ?

[mondo]

I think before we get so many cores on a single chip we'll go back to what was taking off yet disappeared 5 or 6 years ago; motherboards for enthusiast PC's with support for 2 CPU's. SLI made a come back after years being undeveloped so motherboards with multiple CPU support might also make a comeback for the home PC.

Don't count out GPU's either. Looking at the specs of AMD's new ATI card, its not hard to imagine video cards with 2 GPU's containing multiple cores in systems with multiple CPU's each with multipe cores, or the amalgamation of GPU and CPU like IBM's Cell.

[BigC208]

What i find an interesting developement is Nvidia acquisition of Ageia's physics technology. That will find it's way into mainstream video cards and should help with more realistic ingame physics without dragging the cpu/gpu down. As far as realistic aircraft modeling goes, just look at some of the aftermarket products for FS2004/X. Real Air simulations Spitfire package and Shockwave's WW fighters look and fly realisticly. If Oleg releases anything looking and flying close to that I'll be a happy simmer for a long time to come.