From 1947 to 2007 - 1 to 582million transistors

Other wise, for nearly everybody else, Moore’s Law immediately conjures up word associations to Intel, microprocessors, and the corresponding growth of the number of transistors on an integrated circuit.

Simply put, Moore’s Law postulates that the number of transistors on an IC will double every 24 months.  By and by, the IC industry, particularly those serving the computer industry, has followed this “Law” and consumers have come to expect new hardware coming out regularly featuring faster performance, cooler features – directly as a result of more transistors with each new release. That’s why magazines such as HardwareMag exist and have a monthly publication date – to keep up with all these new releases.

Now the question is, is software keeping up with the advance of said hardware? Never mind Excel or Vista, we know these kinds of software never taxes current hardware to an appreciable extent. But games – now, that’s a different matter. There’s no such magazine as “SoftwareMag” as well respected as HWM, but PC Gamer is all but synonymous to new games. Advances in this field have been enormous, a prime example of demand driving supply. Beautiful graphics have become standard for even the most mundane of games (except for a few exceptions).

Yet even the latest games never seem to be able to stress the latest hardware to the maximum, leading me to think that an important factor was missing in the early development of game software. If there’s a Moore’s Law essentially pushing along the development of the Integrated Circuits used in computer hardware such as videocards and motherboards, why shouldn’t there be a law for software and game development? In this case, the Law would ideally postulate a bi-yearly increase in the number of polygons, or perhaps an increase in the AI “smartness” in game design. Such a Law can be used as an informal yardstick to software development, and perhaps increase the number and power of new software releases.

The ideal situation of course would be to have the development of software match that of the hardware, so that the computer experience is maximized. Failing that, perhaps we can take some initial steps in pumping up the software industry by naming a Law for one of the pioneers in the software gaming industry - "The Father of Video Games," Nolan Bushnell.

From 1972 to 2007 - No AI to scary AI 

The original creator of “Pong” and the founder of Atari, Bushnell would have been in a position where a proclamation along the lines of Moore’s wouldn’t have been out of place. Regardless, at the current rate of things, the editors here at Hardwarezone will have their hands full with the latest hardware, but will also be scrambling to get the best software and games to make use of it.