Impact of games on PC Technology, PROJECT

[Aerodyll]

Hi, This is for an assignment im working on at university on games and media and animation course, im asking for help on a project a project and would be very grateful if anyone could lend me some of their experience.

From what i understand games are one of the primary reasons PC Technology continues to be pushed further and further, my project requires me to describe the individual game related components and features in a PC and describe the impact they had on games.
I am having a lot of trouble finding resources on this subject that really links games and the pc hardware behind them, and i am really kind of hoping some better educated people on here could either shed some light through their own opinions or possibly direct me to some information i have missed?

I would be very grateful for any help regarding this as i am not a technically minded person and find it quite challenging lol, Thanks

[Gshonk]

I would suggest asking here http://pcgamer.com/forum/ . Or maybe at Maximum PC's website.

[Adrir]

Off the top of my head:

Direct X (and equivilent) - In the old days, game developers used to have to manually write drivers for sound cards and other computer components. This technology provided device-independence.

Graphics Cards - Reduce load on processor / RAM

Physics Cards - PhysX and others, basically uses the same principles as the graphics card, reduce load on RAM and processor

Bus Widths, Bandwidth, Etc - Get data around that motherboard fast!

Processors - Faster! HyperThreading! Quad-Core! Etc. Get more tasks done in each game cycle - more sophisticated graphics, AI, etc!

Memory - Hard to believe the days of Win3.1 where 8MB was godly!

BroadBand Internet, Switches, etc - Faster internet = online games, new networking potential

Programming Languages - Java/C# Platform-Independence, Virtual Machines, Garbage Collection, etc

Ergonomics - PC gaming devices such as controllers, joysticks, headsets, etc.

Sound Cards - realistic sounds, surround, etc.

Personally, I believe that buisnesswa, academia and the military contribute more to pushing the edge of technology. Most of the "great advances" in PC hardware were simply making existing experimental technology economic. Making it affordable for everyday users.