In addition to transition to optical media, the industry as a whole saw a major shift towards using

real-time 3D computer graphics across games during the 1990s. There had been a number of arcade
games that used simple wireframe vector graphics to simulate 3D, such as Battlezone, Tempest, and
Star Wars. A unique challenge in 3D computer graphics is that real-time rendering typically requires
floating-point calculations, which until the 1990s, most video game hardware was not well-suited
for. Instead, many games simulated 3D effects such as by using parallax rendering of different
background layers, scaling of sprites as they moved towards or away from the player's view, or other
rendering methods such as the SNES's Mode 7. These tricks to simulate 3D-rendeder graphics
through 2D systems are generally referred to as 2.5D graphics.