Texture Mapping is taken for granted in the 21st century, but in the 1990's it was a revolutionary step and activating it placed huge demands on the graphics hardware and specifically the CPU's of the day.



    

Click for a bigger image



What it did allow developers to do was create the illusion of much more complexity in objects by simply mapping a 2 dimensional image to the surface. With clever use of  shadows  a 3 dimensional effect could be produced.



    

Click for a bigger image



As you can see the effect worked best at certain viewing distances!