Let's forget what CPU I had for a sec, or what anyone had. Let's imagine for a sec we are CRS and deciding what requirements we are going to need to make this thing float.
1. We are going bigtime for the RPS crowd. This means Quake, OFP, RS, EQ, etc.
2. This target requires we make the game run on a modest system. Why? Many of the target audience computers will be lunchbox systems. Like it or not the game lives or dies on the back of joe average.
3. The game needs to be easy to set up. Tech support will be busy enough without unnecessarily creating trouble.
4. It must be fun to play. It could be "real" without being "real fun".
So there you go... you have a target audience, and what do you do?
1. Allow the game to be released encased in a box replete with exaggerations and outright lies.
2. Alienate the FPS crowd with gameplay difficult if not impossible to accomplish successfully.
3. Release the game in a state that is so demanding on a system that even the recommended specs on the box don't come close to making it run properly- in fact, at a place so high the standard computer of the time will not run it. Definitely not lunchbox systems.
4. Make setup a chore that only an esoteric group of techno-wizards can successfully navigate. The game becomes more a measure of who can get the highest framerate, and indeed the fun of the game itself is the bragging rights to getting it running "properly".
This is my point point with regards to system requirements- the customer is extremely mislead right from the get-go, and a complaint on the BBS got you a "don't let the door hit your bellybutton on the way out" or "go get an X-box". Well, people left, and by all indications bought the X-boxes and are enjoying the hell out of 'em. Turns out this was pretty good advise, especially when one considers that for the cost some would be forced to incur to bring their rigs up to the real specs they could buy an X-box and have 100% certainty it would work as advertised. And, let's not forget, this was the core audience CRS needed to keep.