It's a bit soon to be concerned about this, but does anyone know if Horizons has been compiled with multi-CPU support? The reason I am asking is that in 2005, we will begin to see processors introduced that don't run at a higher clock rate, but instead will be multi-core. From the perspective of game code, these new processors will allow games and other applications to run faster IF they support multiple processor systems. If they don't, then chances are they will run games/applications SLOWER since two 2.4GHz cores will not run almost every game out there slower since very few games support multiple processors.
It's POSSIBLE that AMD and Intel will come up with a way around this, but multi-core processors from what I understand will simply act like two processors, just squeezed together. Applications that arn't designed and compiled with multiple threads/processors in mind won't be able to take advantage of the new design. I hope I am wrong, but now would be the time for AE to begin looking into supporting multiple processor systems in Horizons, rather than waiting.