Electronic Arts, together with internal studio EA Maxis, have announced the system requirements to run Spore, though we haven't found any indication of what the bare minimums would translate to in gameplay.

The evolution, strategy simulator has been designed to execute on specific system specifications depending on the choice of your operating system and graphics system implementation. The requirements for Windows XP are as follows:

• 2.0 GHz Pentium 4 processor or AMD equivalent
• 512 MB RAM
• A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
• ATI Radeon:
• 9500, 9600, 9800 and variants
• X300, X600, X700, X800, X850
• X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950 and discrete variants
• 2400, 2600, 2900 and variants
• 3650, 3850 and variants
• NVIDIA GeForce:
• FX 5900, FX 5950 (FX supported only in Windows XP)
• 6200, 6500, 6600, 6800 and variants
• 7200, 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950 and variants
• 8400, 8500, 8600, 8800 and variants
• Intel Extreme Graphics
• GMA 950, GMA X3000, GMA X3100
• At least 6 GB of hard drive space

For Windows Vista, players will have to beef up their computer's memory banks to 768 MB of RAM, with all other specifications consistent to those required for running in Windows XP. Gamers on the Mac will have to make sure that their system's algorithm crunching muscle must be on par with the following:

• Mac OS X 10.5.3 Leopard or higher
• Intel Core Duo Processor (unknown speed rating, possibly 1.8 GHz per core)
• 1024 MB RAM
• ATI X1600 (X1900, HD 2400, HD 2600 supported) or NVidia 7300 GT (7600, 8600, 8800 and variants supported) with 128 MB of Video RAM, or Intel Integrated GMA X3100
• At least 4.7GB of hard drive space for installation, plus additional space for custom content (storage space requirement subject to change)

Laptop users and gamers planning on running Spore on ITX machines (those with integrated graphics chipsets) may attempt designing creatures while in transit when installed on a mobile, lightweight rig with these specifications:

Windows portion:

• Intel Pentium D 2.6 GHz per core, Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz per core, or AMD equivalent
• Intel integrated graphics chipset 945GM and above (965 )
• 768 MB RAM

Mac portion:

• Dual 2.0 GHz CPUs or Intel Core 2 Duo 1.7 GHz per core minimum (may not run if below these specs)
• Integrated Intel GMA X3100 minimum (any lower will present very poor performance)

The hard drive storage space requirements on Apple's side is subject to certain changes, so we'll be updating you sometime soon. Until then, it's time to prep our machines for  Will Wright's major, 10-year spanning global gaming phenomenon which launches on September 7.