The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority

I have been thinking about this a lot ever since I played a game called "Balatro". In this game nothing extraordinary happens in terms of computing - some computations get done, some images are shuffled around on the screen, the effects are sparse. The hardware requirements aren't much by modern standards, but still, this game could be ported 1:1 to a machine with Pentium II with a 3dfx graphics card. And yet it demands so much more - not a lot by today standards, but still. I am tempted to try to run it on a 2010 netbook to see if it even boots up.