History SugarWiki / GeniusProgramming

* ''Videogame/GenshinImpact'' ran well, and the PC version, in some cases, maintain 60fps even in older or less-than-capable PC specifications. While great optimizations are not special, the game is an open-world game made to run in the ''Platform/{{Unity}}'' engine, which were infamous for being unable to optimize 3D games well, especially the kind of open-world presented in ''Genshin Impact''.

* ''Treasure Master'' was a contest based game for the [=NES=], but the existence of the UsefulNotes/GameGenie would lead to players cheating. [[DevelopersForesight The developers knew that this is bound to happen,]] so they made the game be able to ''detect if the Game Genie was being used and prevent it from running''. It wasn't until years later when fans discovered a code that bypasses it, but by then, the contest was well over.

** ''UsefulNotes/{{Wine}}'' is a project that attempts to ''recreate'' the full Windows [=API=] on Unix-based and Unix-like systems. It's not an emulator, either (it's actually part of the recursive acronym, ''Wine Is Not an Emulator''), but is actually a piecemeal reverse-engineering of Windows one library at a time, which makes Windows-only applications run just fine on Unix and other [=OSes=]. This includes very modern games like ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'', which are fully playable this way. Since 2018, Wine has even come integrated with Platform/{{Steam}} as Proton, which allows for many Steam games that don't have native Linux versions to run on Linux with minimal or no tweaking.

* Pretty much any [[UsefulNotes/{{Emulation}} emulator]] qualifies. Especially ones which emulate hardware for which there is little or no official information available, requiring the use of reverse engineering.

* ''VideoGame/MuramasaTheDemonBlade'' is a game lauded for its [[SugarWiki/AwesomeArt absolutely gorgeous 2D graphics]] (to give you an idea, [[http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/0/5469/1100244-943228_20090806_790screen007.jpg this is a screenshot of actual gameplay footage]]). The entire game also takes up less than a gigabyte (0.62 GB, to be exact, about twice the size of ''VideoGame/WiiSports''), and 0.49 GB of that is just the soundtrack.

* When Nintendo announced the NES and SNES games for NSO, they also annouced that they will include online multiplayer. When they released the first batch of NES and SNES games for Platform/NintendoSwitch, people found out that while the netcode on the NES games weren't good, The SNES games ran very well - by successfully using rollback to reduce input latency and host migrating on the fly based on whose turn it is and as a bonus, consider that getting emulators to work well at all online is generally very difficult.

[[folder:Video Games (Anti Piracy and Coding Misc.)]]

** The successor to [=VP9=], [=AV1=] allowed even smaller file sizes, letting you fit even more video backups onto a given media, though it naturally required significantly more processing time than H265 or [=VP9=] and needed to wait for CPU advancements to catch up for it to compress in a practical time frame. With the correct settings and input files (such as animation), even consumer-grade hardware can generate compressed files small enough that a full ten hours of HD footage can be squeezed onto a DVD or nearly two hours onto a single ''CD-ROM'' with minimal visual impact. Variants followed such as SVT-AV1 for Intel processors that allow for impressive encoding speeds on the platform, allowing even home users to back up their video collection into an absurdly small footprint.

** The successor to [=VP9=], [=AV1=] allowed even smaller file sizes, letting you fit even more video backups onto a given media, though it naturally required significantly more processing time than H265 or [=VP9=] and needed to wait for CPU advancements to catch up for it to compress in a practical time frame. With the correct settings and input files (such as animation), even consumer-grade hardware can generate compressed files small enough that a full ten hours of HD footage can be squeezed onto a DVD or nearly two hours onto a single ''CD-ROM'' with minimal visual impact.

* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashFlash 2'', a completely fan-made project, has somehow managed to rebuild and port the engine of ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros''[[note]]Remember that ''Super Smash Bros. Brawl'' was one of the most memory-intensive games on the Platform/{{Wii}}, even being the first to require a dual-layered disk.[[/note]] into UsefulNotes/AdobeFlash, and ''accurately''. The game was intended in the first place to push the limits of the program, and that it does -- it's progressed so much that it's essentially a console-quality game. Unfortunately, it's still a victim of the program that it runs in, as Flash itself falls [[DarthWiki/IdiotProgramming on the other end of the spectrum]]... that said, though, ''[=SSF2=]'''s remarkably efficient for what it does, and slowdown on lower-end computers is fairly minor.

* ''VideoGame/DragonsLair'' was a really impressive game at the time, and still holds up today. What's really impressive is the machine's hardware. All the game is is a UsefulNotes/LaserDisc player, with the controls simply telling the game to switch to certain frames (a lot of home versions even retain this, albeit by separating the game's scenes into chapters instead). That being said, [[AwesomeButImpractical LaserDisc is both a blessing and a curse]], but it's still impressive because of how minimalistic it is.

** H265 and it's royalty-free counterpart [=VP9=] can make file sizes even smaller with less noticable block artifacts than their predecessors, and were a boon for content providers (Such as Website/YouTube) who wished to provide HD Video hosting and save as much bandwidth as possible. For their time, advanced codecs like these required significant processor power to create a file, but are effective enough to fit 2-4 hours of HD Video onto a UsefulNotes/{{DVD}} with surprisingly-good quality in exchange. The quality is adjustable to taste for high-fidelity backups that still require less storage than its predecessors. [=VP9=] has the advantage of obfuscating compression artifacts even in heavily compressed videos, taking advantage of how we tend to notice less static details in videos with a lot of motion

** If that's not enough for you, try [[https://github.com/mame/quine-relay/ its follow-up,]] written in ''128 cycles/languages,'' among those Velato, whose source file is {{UsefulNotes/MIDI}}, and Piet, whose source file is an image!

* All of the awesome animation they do in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic''? All of it is managed on an older version of UsefulNotes/AdobeFlash. Despite this, they manage to do things like MotionParallax and non-CG 3D effects that would make Disney's animated films blush, and they all do this on old software instead of in traditional cels. It is this show that truly shows what animators with Flash could put out if they really put in both the artistic effort and had the programming chops to manage it.

* A Chinese VideoGameDemake for the Platform/GameBoyAdvance of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance'' and ''VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn'' (link [[https://feuniverse.us/t/fe9-re-done-fe10-re-done-rebuild-fe9-10-in-gba-use-fe8-translation-hiring/10243/290 here]]) manages to accomplish a downright obscene amount of things, including but not limited to: having ''both'' games in their entirety be playable and selectable for each route, a hub world modeled after the Garreg Mach monastery with tons of things to do, a system for mana, ''over 256 skills,'' S-Supports (including supports that didn't exist in the game beforehand), third-tier classes, a traversable world map, an infinite reclass system, voice acted selection, and a ''bunch of other things,'' all fitting into the 32KB file size limit of the console. This is even more absurd given the fact that China may not even ''have'' a [=FEBuilder=] platform that every other [=ROM=] hacker uses in the West, meaning they had to go about this using binary hex editing just to get everything done. This has left such an impression on the modding community that many people are downright ''baffled'' how such a thing was even possible.

* The port of ''[[VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha Street Fighter Alpha 2]]'' to the '''[[Platform/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem SNES]]'''. How did they do it? The game used the [=S-DD1=] chip that the aforementioned ''VideoGame/{{Star Ocean|1}}'' used. While the port only had the normally accessible cast and two other secret characters (and one of them was DummiedOut) and characters and backgrounds had less animation (and obviously no CD-quality music), either way it was still impressive that a game that was ported to [[UsefulNotes/TheFifthGenerationOfConsoleVideoGames 32-bit consoles]] could run on a 16-bit console.

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'' is remarkably well-optimized on all platforms, but on PC, managing to deliver semi-competent performance on a Pentium system, while easily hitting 60FPS maxed out with frames to spare on a single high-end graphics card, even with upscaled DSR resolutions. The game renders a big, photorealistic open map with dynamic weather in real time, all the while the game uses Denuvo Anti-Tamper, a x64 based copy protection made by the same firm as Securom yet without its flaws... [[DarthWiki/IdiotProgramming until a version in 2017 anyway]]. That and the game was one of the last high profile release for the Platform/Playstation3 and Platform/XBOX360 with relatively little loss in fidelity, is a testament to meticulous optimization that shouldn't even be possible.

* ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarI'' is an absolute marvel of a game for the Platform/SegaMasterSystem, with how much they were able to cram in an 8-bit cartridge. The most impressive feature is the first person dungeon view. While movement is still grid based like old computer [=RPGs=], and every dungeon looks like the same brick corridors, just with different coloured bricks, what is impressive is the smooth scrolling when moving or turning, rather than a jerky jump to the next square. Reportedly, they were able to attain even smoother scrolling, but that ended up taking too much memory. Equally impressive are the memory tricks the developers used to max out every bit of data in the game, and fit it in a standard Sega Master System cartridge. So much so that when the programmers for the Switch remake were adding in new features, they literally couldn't *find* the sprite data for one of the enemies (Dr. Mad, one of the bosses) to put in the bestiary, and so had to screenshot it.

* [[https://youtu.be/hNRO7lno_DM 8088 MPH]] is a demo that does '''1024''' colors, polygon rendering, 4 channel music with a ''one channel beeper'' and other things that the [[UsefulNotes/IBMPersonalComputer original IBM PC]] with a CGA card (on a composite monitor) should not be doing. It's so ''very'' specifically tailored to the IBM PC's exact hardware and quirks that for a long time no emulator existed that could run it without crashing; eventually one was [[https://int10h.org/blog/2023/07/martypc-pc-xt-emulator-raising-the-bar/ finally developed]] that could - ''eight years'' later.

* ''Zippy the Porcupine'' is a ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog1'' VideoGameDemake for the UsefulNotes/Atari2600 that [[https://youtu.be/0nh6YSWp3zQ impressively recreates Sonic's gameplay on the antiquated console]], featuring loops, collapsing bridges, moving platforms, and other Sonic staples.

* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashFlash 2'', a completely fan-made project, has somehow managed to rebuild and port the engine of ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros''[[note]]Remember that ''Super Smash Bros. Brawl'' was one of the most memory-intensive games on the UsefulNotes/{{Wii}}, even being the first to require a dual-layered disk.[[/note]] into UsefulNotes/AdobeFlash, and ''accurately''. The game was intended in the first place to push the limits of the program, and that it does -- it's progressed so much that it's essentially a console-quality game. Unfortunately, it's still a victim of the program that it runs in, as Flash itself falls [[DarthWiki/IdiotProgramming on the other end of the spectrum]]... that said, though, ''[=SSF2=]'''s remarkably efficient for what it does, and slowdown on lower-end computers is fairly minor.

** Created compression tools that allowed [[UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem NES]] ''Golf'' to have a complete course of 18 holes, [[http://shmuplations.com/iwata/ back when that was considered a sheer impossibility]].
** ... ported the battle code of ''VideoGame/PokemonStadium'' to the UsefulNotes/{{Nintendo 64}} [[http://www.nintendo.co.uk/NOE/en_GB/news/iwata/iwata_asks_-_pokmon_heartgold_version__soulsilver_version_16288_16289.html despite not having any access to crucial documents. And he did it all in a week.]]

** ... made an algoritm that, while increasing the file size a bit, had ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'' decompress sprites a bit faster in places. [[note]]Rumors [[CommonKnowledge say]] that he coded a compression algorithm that condensed the games from overflowing the ROM space to being able to fit almost all of the [[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue Kanto region]], but the real reason was that they were able to get a chip that had twice the amount of ROM.[[/note]]

** The UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis version of ''VideoGame/ToyStory'' manages to do ''a lot'' of impressive things for the system's standards.

This is similar to how music in most UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance games works. The GBA has only two PCM channels and no sample memory for playing sample-based music, so samples are handled by CPU-side sound engines that play, modulate and mix samples in real time. Luckily the GBA had a quite powerful CPU for a handheld of its time, so this approach didn't affect gameplay that much.

** ''VideoGame/MickeyMania'' pulled off some impressive perspective tricks in a number of its levels, with stages such as a ''Nebulus''-style rotating tower and a head-on moose chase. Not so much of a big deal on the SNES, with its GPU support for background perspective in Mode 7, and the [=PS1=], which supports both [=2D=] and [=3D=] games, It ''is'', however, a big deal on the UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis and Sega [=CD=], where all of these effects had to be emulated '''in software'''.

** Say what you will about the NES Classic Edition, but you have to admit the emulator is extremely accurate (albeit with noticeable audio issues), even compared to the one used for UsefulNotes/VirtualConsole. It might help that NOE developed the emulator this time. It would later be used for the NES games included with Nintendo Switch Online, with said audio problems amended.

* The UsefulNotes/SuperGameBoy is a peripheral for the SNES that lets you play Game Boy games and a few select Game Boy Color games on your TV. First off, it's not an emulator (the SNES wasn't capable of emulation of any sort). Open up the cartridge, and you'll find actual Game Boy hardware inside. Literally the only thing that isn't 1:1 with the original Game Boy is the clock speed (and even then, it's not by much, and unless you’re doing an official, recorded speedrun of a game[[note]]Many official speed running communities like Games Done Quick declared that using a Super Game Boy is against the rules due to the 2% speed increase theoretically giving users of the device a slight advantage, and thus disqualifies any submissions found to be made using the device[[/note]], that doesn't even matter anyway). Probably the most defining feature of the peripheral is the enhancements it would give to the certain games. Very few games made actual use of it (most of the time, you'd just get a custom border and a pre-loaded palette if you were lucky), but the ones that did were Genius Programming in and of themselves.

** A pirate version of ''VideoGame/TheLionKing'' called ''[[https://bootleggames.fandom.com/wiki/Super_Lion_King Super Lion King]]'' lives up to its name by being more faithful to the UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis version. ''Super Lion King'', despite omitting 4 levels, includes most of the Adult Simba levels. The graphics, notwithstanding the neon colors and seams on the right and bottom edges, are more elaborate and accurate. The sounds are similarly more faithful; in one case, despite omitting the opening and closing music, the pirate version keeps the music when Simba loses a life. Even when taking into account that the official version is based off the UsefulNotes/GameBoy version, the official port actually downgraded some of the graphics.

* [[https://i.imgur.com/NqevhBd.jpeg Here]] is a still from a cutscene in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'', rendered in high-definition with the Dolphin emulator. While ''The Wind Waker'' is predominantly cel-shaded, the tower pictured is ''realistically'' shaded--but the red dot near the bottom of the picture is cel-shaded. The game can run ''two lighting systems at the same time'' on [[UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube a system without programmable shaders]]! Even in regular gameplay, large landforms like the tower are real-shaded to emulate the matte backgrounds of animated movies.

* As ridiculous as it sounds, most games on the UsefulNotes/{{Atari 2600}} qualify as this. The system specs made it capable for running for simple, symmetrical games like ''VideoGame/{{Pong}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Combat|Atari2600}}''. Many developers found ways to bypass the limitations of the 2600 and did ''a lot'' of impressive stuff with it:

* ''VideoGame/CannonFodder'' on the UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor seems like just another GBC title, until the [[https://youtu.be/dKjTCSikTus intro sequence]] explodes into a ''full-color pre-rendered FMV''. Adding to that, all music, voice clips, and sound effects are fully recorded, with not a single 8-bit bleep in the game. The method used to display full-color video on the Game Boy Color is quite ingenious. Because it can only display a few colors at a time, each frame of video alternates between different color palettes. The frames alternate faster than the human eye can pick up, creating the illusion of a much larger set of colors.

* ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' for the UsefulNotes/SuperNintendo got a lukewarm reception for its blocky visuals and choppy gameplay, but [[https://youtu.be/JqP3ZzWiul0 Randy Linden coding a working port]] onto the system can be a very interesting case study. The trouble was that Randy didn't even have the original source code to the game and worked out coding a port by studying Matt Fell's Unofficial Doom Specs. Randy developed the game for the Super FX 2 chip with his own homebrew development kit and a copy of ''VideoGame/StarFox'' as some of his tools, and reduced the amount of math required to run the game by using precalculated tables to prevent the hardware from slowing to a crawl due to trigonometric functions. Levels had to be removed to fit the game onto cartridge and the end result wasn't nearly as feature-rich as the original game, but it was quite a feat to see a game like this on SNES hardware, even if it was seen as a PortingDisaster.

* ''VideoGame/EarthwormJim 2'' manages to pull off voices in the theme song and rock music that's not MIDI, ''even in the [[UsefulNotes/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem SNES]] and UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis versions.''

** The game's NES port is no less impressive. It features ''3D vector graphics'' on an 8-bit system, long before the Super FX and other console 3D accelerators. The unreleased UsefulNotes/GameBoy version [[https://youtu.be/hFEtHJYs3mo is just as impressive]].

* ''Exile'' (no relation to [[VideoGame/{{Exile}} the Mac RPG series]]) was a {{Metroidvania}}-ish title that managed to feature [[WreakingHavok surprisingly realistic 2D physics]] for objects and even windy areas, as well as a living ecosystem for what was originally a UsefulNotes/BBCMicro title released in 1988. With a RAM expansion, the game could even play voice samples on that same hardware! You think that's impressive? How about Box 2D-like physics... on the NES? ''VideoGame/Gimmick1992'' is that game that managed to pull it off, and that was made for a system that's nearly a decade old by the time it was released!

* ''Videogame/GenshinImpact'' ran well, and the PC version, in some cases, maintain 60fps even in older or less-than-capable PC specifications. While great optimizations are not special, the game is an open-world game made to run in the ''UsefulNotes/{{Unity}}'' engine, which were infamous for being unable to optimize 3D games well, especially the kind of open-world presented in ''Genshin Impact''.

* Creator/GunpeiYokoi had a philosophy to video game hardware design called "lateral thinking with withered technology": instead of jumping onto the cutting edge of newly developed technology, he espoused the virtue of using technology that is cheap and commonplace in new and creative ways. It is this philosophy that gave rise to the ''VideoGame/GameAndWatch'' series, using technology that was already commonplace in digital LCD calculators and repurposing them into simple yet fun portable games (with a digital watch built in as well). It was this design philosphy that also gave rise to the UsefulNotes/GameBoy: while other handheld consoles from competitors, like the UsefulNotes/AtariLynx and UsefulNotes/GameGear, boasted full color and backlit screens, Yokoi opted instead to use monochromatic graphics. This turned out to be a great boon, as this eased the power requirements of the Game Boy (the Lynx and Game Gear were notorious battery eaters) while providing a portable gaming experience on par with the NES, allowing the Game Boy to not only outlast its competition, but see continued use and development [[LongRunners from its debut in 1989 to its discontinuation in 2003 - an impressive fourteen years!]] Even after his departure from Nintendo and subsequent passing, the company that he helped become a dominant force in the industry still continues to use his philosophy, foregoing cutting-edge technology in favor of using cost-effective technology in new ways.

* ''VideoGame/JettRocket'' set the standard for what could be done with the UsefulNotes/WiiWare's 44 megabyte limit. To most developers, this is a cripplingly small amount, and they deem it unreasonable and unworkable. Shin'en Multimedia created a full-length 3D platformer on it that looks and plays like a retail game.

** Nintendo has quite a history with impressively small file sizes for their games, and it continues to this day with the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch. In an era where many triple-A titles can be upwards of 60 to 100 GB in size, with 20 to 30 GB being considered "small", Nintendo has managed to keep many of their big titles quite compact. Some of the highlights include:

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'' is remarkably well-optimized on all platforms, but on PC, managing to deliver semi-competent performance on a Pentium system, while easily hitting 60FPS maxed out with frames to spare on a single high-end graphics card, even with upscaled DSR resolutions. The game renders a big, photorealistic open map with dynamic weather in real time, all the while the game uses Denuvo Anti-Tamper, a x64 based copy protection made by the same firm as Securom yet without its flaws... [[DarthWiki/IdiotProgramming until a version in 2017 anyway]]. That and the game was one of the last high profile release for the UsefulNotes/Playstation3 and UsefulNotes/XBOX360 with relatively little loss in fidelity, is a testament to meticulous optimization that shouldn't even be possible.

* Meet ''VideoGame/NanoAssault Neo''. It's a UsefulNotes/WiiU eShop launch title, has graphics and sound that rivals a lot of big-budget games, runs at 60FPS, and is only 60 MB!! As it was developed by Shin'en, the same developer as ''VideoGame/JettRocket'', it's to be expected.
* When Nintendo announced the NES and SNES games for NSO, they also annouced that they will include online multiplayer. When they released the first batch of NES and SNES games for UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch, people found out that while the netcode on the NES games weren't good, The SNES games ran very well - by successfully using rollback to reduce input latency and host migrating on the fly based on whose turn it is and as a bonus, consider that getting emulators to work well at all online is generally very difficult.
* While the UsefulNotes/PlayStationPortable was well-regarded in terms of its graphical capabilities (regarded as being superior to the UsefulNotes/NintendoDS), few would expect the system to be able to have good ports of contemporary console games like the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3. That, however, is the beauty of the PSP port of ''VideoGame/Tekken6''. Even though some cuts had to be made to fit the game onto a UMD (the story mode couldn't be included), the core gameplay is ''exactly'' like on the consoles, and the graphics are easily on par with the [=PS3=].
* Someone managed to create a game resembling ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' for the UsefulNotes/NintendoDS. What makes that so special? The game contains fully 3D environments, with ''working physics'', and even renders the view through portals. As if that wasn't enough, this is a homebrew game made without access to Nintendo's official SDK, using information gained from reverse engineering. Despite this, it's more advanced than most official games. You can [[https://gbatemp.net/threads/aperture-science-ds-new-nds-homebrew.353315/ download it here]].[[note]]In order to play this on an actual Nintendo DS, you'll need a flash cartridge, but those have become quite cheap. You also have the option of playing it on a hacked UsefulNotes/Nintendo3DS via backward compatibility, or a PC or mobile device using an emulator.[[/note]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Recca}}'' is a fast-paced BulletHell shooter with awesome graphics, creative bosses, homing weapons and techno music. Even with more than 20+ enemies and bullets on the screen, there is usually little to no slowdown. One must wonder how [=KiD=] managed to code something like this '''for the [[UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem NES]]'''.

* ''VideoGame/{{Scribblenauts}}'': game that boasts a dictionary of few dozens of thousands words, with each word having its own graphical representation, animations and interaction patterns (like elephants being afraid of mice and so on) was crammed into a ''32 megabyte'' UsefulNotes/NintendoDS cartridge. Even more impressive in ''VideoGame/SuperScribblenauts'' with added adjectives (everything ''still fits'' into a 32 MB ROM chip).

** ''VideoGame/SonicBoomRiseOfLyric'' of all games is a virtual masterwork of programming. Yes, it's a glitchy, blatantly unfinished mess that had to be patched with entirely new full-sized level maps, but the team behind it had it sprung on them that it would be a UsefulNotes/WiiU exclusive '''after''' they had already completed too much development and were too close to deadline to start over... when the game was designed with [=CryEngine=] 3, a engine that was literally '''not designed to be able to run''' on the Wii U. The fact that it runs at ''all'' borders on the miraculous, and required outrageous hours and vast amounts of help from the engine's developer, Creator/{{Crytek}}.
** Tiger Electronics games are not known for their technical sophistication, essentially being off-brand UsefulNotes/GameAndWatch handhelds. Their take on ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'', however, is quite impressive: 3D levels that resemble those from the original Dreamcast game fairly well, unique bosses, and even cheat codes are featured. [[https://youtu.be/CKYWUfAgX98&feature=youtu.be See for yourself!]]
** The Nintendo Switch version of ''VideoGame/SonicForces'' definitely counts. Rather than [[ReformulatedGame developing a seperate version for the weaker hardware]], the developers managed to port the game from the UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 and Xbox One versions. Sure, the graphics had to be downgraded, but they managed to leave everything intact, and the file size for the game was ''cut down to be about a third of the size'' compared to the other versions as well![[note]]For reference, the UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 version is 18.3 GB, while the Switch version is 6.8 GB.[[/note]]

* Jez San's ''Starglider'' on the UsefulNotes/AtariST, particularly its sound. The system had negligible capabilites, but he managed to pull off sampling and proper wave forms (as opposed to square waves) by stripping the machine open and putting a voltmeter across the sound chip.

* The port of ''[[VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha Street Fighter Alpha 2]]'' to the '''[[UsefulNotes/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem SNES]]'''. How did they do it? The game used the [=S-DD1=] chip that the aforementioned ''VideoGame/{{Star Ocean|1}}'' used. While the port only had the normally accessible cast and two other secret characters (and one of them was DummiedOut) and characters and backgrounds had less animation (and obviously no CD-quality music), either way it was still impressive that a game that was ported to [[UsefulNotes/TheFifthGenerationOfConsoleVideoGames 32-bit consoles]] could run on a 16-bit console.

* ''VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia'' may not be ridiculously small in size as far as [[UsefulNotes/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem SNES]] games go, being one of the larger games on the system, but this game pushed the capability of the SNES to its limit. For example,the game's copious amounts of SceneryPorn, in quantities which were deemed almost impossible for a cartridge (at the time). Then the programming and sound team one-upped all this by... [[https://youtu.be/W3SA9LuqQgA inserting a whole theme song with voice into the opening]]! This was completely insane and was thought to be absolutely impossible for a cartridge title, especially one sporting as much visual flash as ''Phantasia''.[[note]]It's also insane from a technical perspective, too: the song itself is ''dozens'' of tiny voice clips, since that's all that will fit into the available sound memory, swapped out and loaded in sequence from the ROM cart as the song plays. Getting it to emulate cleanly was an infamous bugbear of the emu scene in the late '90s and early '00s (as the code makes a number of odd calls to the SPU to make the constant file-swapping work), and it uses more than a little compression on top of this, and "can cleanly emulate ''Phantasia''" was a major feather in the caps of ZSNES and [=SNES9x=].[[/note]] Every Tales game since has a theme song, but it's all less impressive when more memory, both in RAM and storage, is involved. Almost every technical concept from ''[=ToP=]'' was then imported into ''VideoGame/{{Star Ocean|1}}'' (which featured many of the same staff, who had left Wolf Team/Namco in the interim to form Tri-Ace) which was even ''more'' technically bonkers: while it didn't have a full vocal song like ''Tales'' did, its introductory cutscene was ''fully voiced'' (in English with Japanese subtitles, no less)!

* Music/TommyTallarico composed some impressive music on the UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis, and "Rave Dancetune", the bonus level theme from ''VideoGame/CoolSpot'', demonstrates why. Through careful manipulation of Creator/{{Sega}}'s [[https://youtu.be/WEvnZRCW_qc?t=12m44s GEMS]][[note]]Genesis Editor for Music and Sound Effects[[/note]] software, despite the system's [=YM2612=] chip only being able to play music through six channels at any time, Tommy was able to give players the perception that "Rave Dancetune" uses up to ''nine'' instruments at the same time, three beyond the chip's basic capability. A slightly modified version of "Rave Dancetune", which is reprogrammed to utilize two Genesis [=YM2612=] chips concurrently, [[https://youtu.be/n7pMcVosV2g can be heard here in its full glory]].

%%* Basically everything that happened on the UsefulNotes/ZXSpectrum, although the legendary strategy-adventure-RPG ''VideoGame/TheLordsOfMidnight'' surely takes the cake.

** ''UsefulNotes/{{Wine}}'' is a project that attempts to ''recreate'' the full Windows [=API=] on Unix-based and Unix-like systems. It's not an emulator, either (it's actually part of the recursive acronym, ''Wine Is Not an Emulator''), but is actually a piecemeal reverse-engineering of Windows one library at a time, which makes Windows-only applications run just fine on Unix and other [=OSes=]. This includes very modern games like ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'', which are fully playable this way. Since 2018, Wine has even come integrated with UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} as Proton, which allows for many Steam games that don't have native Linux versions to run on Linux with minimal or no tweaking.

** SNES Advance and Snezziboy are particularly impressive -- fully playable SNES emulators squeezed onto the UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance.

** Higan may be relatively slow, but its SNES core (originally its own emulator, called BSNES) is notable for being ''100%'' accurate to the original machine, with no game-specific hacks. (More accurate emulation requires more processing power in general, explaining why Higan is slower and possibly explaining why Nintendo's own SNES emulation for the UsefulNotes/Nintendo3DS requires the more powerful New Nintendo 3DS models).

** John Harris, who is profiled in the Steve Levy book ''Hackers'' had to downgrade Jawbreaker (an off-label ArcadePerfectPort of ''VideoGame/PacMan'' for the UsefulNotes/Atari8BitComputers) to play on the UsefulNotes/Atari2600. Since the process of testing code for the 2600 as you wrote it was extremely laborious, he wrote a 2600 emulator for the Atari 800. Let that sink in; an Atari 2600 emulator was written for a home computer in 1981!

* [[https://rpcs3.net/ RPCS3]] is a UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 emulator that as of September 2022, is fully compatible with just over 68% of the system's back catalog, which works out to over 2200 games, despite the console's notoriously complex hardware architecture. This includes ''VideoGame/Persona5'', which was playable on the emulator prior to the game's Western release.

* Steve Wozniak made it so that a 3 1/2" floppy disk that would be 720 kB on other systems to have 800 kB on both UsefulNotes/AppleII's and UsefulNotes/{{Apple Macintosh}}es. Unfortunately, this ended up causing compatibility issues with most other systems, so Apple went with the 1440 [=KiB=] used for the rest of the industry.

* Introducing the [[https://youtu.be/-gnvQS2xhRg Samsung Gear VR]]. All the functions of an UsefulNotes/OculusRift, but in a more affordable form that only requires your smartphone. And by "Oculus Rift", we seriously mean "Oculus Rift". The device actually uses the Oculus firmware and HMD instead of just using the phone's accelerometer like other phone-based VR systems do. All you have to do is plug in an Android phone with a Micro-USB port that can fit inside it. While there's not much of an install base for the device as of this writing, theoretically, you could port anything that uses the Oculus runtime, and it'll work with some light tweaks.

** [[https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/132407-knee-deep-in-kdizd-released-its-kdizd-for-doom2exe-public-build-3-is-out-with-crash-fix/ Knee-Deep in KDiZD]] takes the levels from Knee-Deep in [=ZDoom=], a WAD that was supposed to require [=ZDoom=] as its name suggessts, and makes it work in vanilla ''Doom II'' with little sacrificed.

* As ridiculous as it sounds, most games on the UsefulNotes/{{Atari 2600}} qualify as this. The system specs made it capable for running for simple, symmetrical games like ''VideoGame/{{Pong}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Combat}}''. Many developers found ways to bypass the limitations of the 2600 and did ''a lot'' of impressive stuff with it:

** Here's an interview with pinball programmer [[http://mypinballblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/in-begining.html Dwight Sullivan]], in which he describes how small the pinball software was at the time. Notable programmer [[Creator/LarryDeMar Larry DeMar]] (the co-creator of ''VideoGame/{{Defender}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Robotron 2084}}'') invented automatic replay adjustment (with Creator/SteveRitchie), which automatically adjusts the [[EveryTenThousandPoints replay score]] based on the players' performances on location, and software compensation for broken playfield switches/features, both of which were introduced in 1986's ''Pinball/HighSpeed''.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9JXBYiiG4k Demotronic]] is a Game Boy Color demo that features parallax scrolling.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9JXBYiiG4k Demotronic]] is a Game Boy Color demo that features parallax scrolling. While parallax is fairly common in 2D games, this demo pulls off ''vertical'' parallax, which is unheard of on most systems, especially 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. This also allows to perform hardware scaling, which is combined with rapidly changing the color palette to produce the 3D checkerboard that makes up the first part of the demo.
** This trick requires cycle-perfect emulation in order to not break. For this reason, the demo also includes some emulator detection (which most current emulators don't trigger, but it was fairly accurate at the time.)
* [[https://youtu.be/Imquk_3oFf4 Memories]], the winner of the Revision 2020 demoparty's 256 byte division, blows A Mind Is Born out of the water by fitting in ''seven distinct graphical effects'', plus smooth transitions between the effects, plus background music. Just look at the [[https://www.twitch.tv/videos/589179638?t=7h02m40s live reactions]] when it was first unveiled.

* Nintendo is generally known as having some of the worst netcode in the gaming industry, with their online multiplayer generally panned for being unreliable and lag-prone. Thus, when Nintendo released the first batch of SNES games for UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch, people were shocked to find that the included online multiplayer ran ''incredibly well'' - by successfully using rollback to reduce input latency and host migrating on the fly based on whose turn it is, it manages to have smoother netcode than most of the Nintendo games that run natively on Switch. As a bonus, consider that getting emulators to work well at all online is generally very difficult. Note that this does not apply to the NES app, where the online experience is generally considered quite poor.

* ''VideoGame/FugaMelodiesOfSteel'' is filled to the brim with beautiful [=2D=] artwork, impressive [=3D=] graphics on a TwoAndAHalfD plane, high quality music, voice tracks for both Japanese and French languages as well as a whole bunch of international text languages, and lots and lots of particle effects. Not only did they program the game to have no loading screens outside of the initial start-up, but the entire game is only 1.25 [=GB=] at most, making it no bigger than a typical [=GameCube=] game.

** ... compressed ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'', which filled the cartridge despite only being half-finished. This was the whole reason that almost the entire [[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue Kanto region]] was able to be included in the games (it was present as early as 1997, but before Iwata's intervention it was heavily condensed to just the size of a large city). There was ''that much'' space left after he was done.

* [[https://youtu.be/hNRO7lno_DM 8088 MPH]] is a demo that does '''1024''' colors, polygon rendering, 4 channel music with a ''one channel beeper'' and other things that the [[UsefulNotes/IBMPersonalComputer original IBM PC]] with a CGA card (on a composite monitor) should not be doing. It's so ''very'' specifically tailored to the IBM PC's exact hardware and quirks that no emulator exists that can run it without crashing.
** until now... [[https://int10h.org/blog/2023/07/martypc-pc-xt-emulator-raising-the-bar/ The new MartyPC emulator]] can actually run this demo perfectly.

*** They developed it as a [=PlayStation=] 1 exclusive, and when it came out, it was so much better than anyone had ever managed to accomplish on the console that other developers cried foul, insisting that Naughty Dog had used secret libraries provided by Sony to them and them alone. The opposite was true: they used as little as possible of Sony's stuff, and essentially hacked as much of the game as possible to run as close to the hardware as they could make it, effectively developing their own development as they went. The result was ''way'' ahead of what anyone had managed on the meager (even for the times) power of the [=PlayStation=] 1. You can read about many of the tricks they used in [[http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/02/making-crash-bandicoot-part-1/ Andy Gavin's postmortem]] for the game.