Hey, here's an interesting topic..

My screen, you're average 22" lcd, has a special, ahem, "Feature". It analyzes the amount of dark pixels on screen, and adjusts brightness accordingly. Great.

However, you know the fading effect on many games, when the screen fades to black. Well, instead of smoothly changing, every time the alpha of the blackness reaches a new level, my screen brightness changes, so I end up seeing these huge jumps in darkness. Sadly, this feature cannot be turned off or changed, so I'm stuck with it.

Another way my "specifications" precede me lies in my own beta testing. Hmm, 60/60 fps, on my computer. Well, I release it to others for further testing, feeling proud, and turns out they get an fps that makes me feel a little less proud. One person reported getting 7 fps. One person couldn't even see the game properly (the backgrounds transparency was failing, resulting in a large purple block)

Of course, there is never a way to "reduce" your specs to be able to see things through other peoples eyes. So, feel free to discuss ways your specifications can really effect how you program a game. Making a program suited to a 1600 dollar computer is all good and fair, but when it comes to the mass market, lower middle class blue collars, you need to think about what it might look like, feel like, and play like, for them.

Feel free to discuss, and if you must, post your Specs, as long as you also post an example of how your specs are good or bad.