Future sim platforms or maybe help with now.

[MaxGunz]

With Linux and WindowsPE you can make a boot disk or device with only the drivers, etc, that you want. It means the developer has a way to control the environment the game is played on and can predict performance from the hardware alone. Then one program could be made free to check hardware and tell the user.

Too many times I see people with the same basic hardware and one has it good while the other has it bad. Troubleshooter eliminates sources of errors to find the problems. Removing the differences in personal system installations and tasks should get rid of many unknowns. What works on one should then work on all.

I don't know just what is possible with WindowsPE though. A game made for Linux though could fit on a bootable USB flash drive with a small Linux (Puppy Linux runs 128M) and the game run on its own boot environment. That makes a step closer to console operation and I think a boon to developers. Perhaps Microsoft has more ways to boot and load than just the one, but I don't know of it.

Another step from there, at a cost in small hardware and distribution is a way to beat piracy for maybe a very long time.