Yup, in hindsight it's interesting because the key innovation was realizing that real-time 3D was possible. The algorithms themselves (like 3D texture-mapping)

Yup, in hindsight it's interesting because the key innovation was realizing that real-time 3D was possible. The algorithms themselves (like 3D texture-mapping) are college third year problem set level difficulty to actually implement, but having the curiosity, courage, and ambition to be the first to do it real-time is huge! The algorithms used in today's 3-d game engines are definitely more complex than something I'd expect a college student to do, but the state of the art has also progressed substantially since the 90's.