nshady posted the minimum - probably add half the specs again for running it nicely?

I kind of want to see the recommended requirements too though.

yay! a modern game my pc can run!

I wasn't into all the hype around this game but since watching some of the stuff on it I am pretty pumped.

http://www.vgpro.com/profile/sunsu/article/spore_system_requirements_reveal

WINDOWS XP
- 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
- 512 MB RAM
- A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
- At least 6 GB of hard drive space

WINDOWS VISTA
- 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
- 768 MB RAM
- A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
- At least 6 GB of hard drive space

MAC OS X
- Mac OS X 10.5.3 Leopard or higher
- Intel Core Duo Processor
- 1024 MB RAM
- ATI X1600 or NVidia 7300 GT 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 creations.

Whoops missed that somehow, does it come with anything that won't be in the full game?

If you clicked on the link that started the specs discussion, you'd see it says $9.95

Pretty sure that's a US price too, so it'll probably be $49.95 here knowing Aussie retailers.

Do you have to pay for it?

It's not going to be as demanding as the full game as it doesn't have to render the 3d worlds and the massive universe.. it's just a character creation screen really.

It's a more limited version of what's in the final game so that people can start making creatures in the lead up to its release.

hdd space aside, wouldnt the hardware specs be the same?
isnt creature creator a tie-in product?

Hmm, you're probably right.

It would be stupid and annoying if you bought the creature editor and it worked fine, only to discover that when you bought the final game you couldn't run it.

That's not Spore, Nick.

Not sure if the requirements would be the same as the Creature Creator program, but you'll definitely need a lot more than 300MB of HDD space!

OS - Windows XP/Vista (FAT 16/32 file systems not supported for Digital Download)
Processor – 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
Memory – XP: 512 MB RAM / Vista: 768 MB RAM
Hard Drive – At least 300 MB of hard drive space for installation, plus additional space for created creatures. (600 MB for digital download)
Video Card – A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0*

For computers using built-in graphics chipsets, the game
requires at least:
* Intel Integrated Chipset GMA 950
* Dual 2.0GHz CPUs, or 1.7GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent

Supported Video Cards

ATI Radeon(TM) series
9500, 9600, 9800
X300, X600, X700, X800, X850
X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950
2400, 2600, 2900,
3650, 3850

NVIDIA GeForce series
FX 5900, FX 5950
6200, 6500, 6600, 6800,
7200, 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950
8400, 8500, 8600, 8800

Intel(R) Extreme Graphics
GMA 950, GMA X3000, GMA X3100

From here.

looking good - might be a game i actually buy for the pc
any idea about the hardware specs required?

I was fairly impressed with that. Seems heaps like E.V.O but that is a good thing.