Just been to see Lord of the Rings Two-Towers, and the CGI was just amazing - especially the huge battle scenes at Helms Deep.

So my question is, given Moores law and all that, how long will it be before we can play games with that kind of detail and complexity in realtime? ie, how long until watching the game looks no different from watching the film?

I've read that WETA (the company that did all the effects) were running 2,400 1GHz Pentium III for several months to achieve the effects. Playstation III is rumoured to have a teraflop chip at its heart.

Educated guesses anyone?