[lifthrasiir]

You should have said "thinking outside of the abstraction" instead. Bits are implementation details. The very knowledge of linear-feedback shift register is essential in this particular example.

> CPUs are powerful enough to use a naive fade transition. But coders who are aware of the internal workings can make it even faster on todays hardware.

Not really. No one would do the fade transition---or more accurately, the regional alpha blending with a fixed color---in CPU nowadays exactly because GPUs are much more capable in that job, and such a job is actually fairly easy in most abstractions used because it is an integral part of UX and whatever. The ability of leveraging all resources and determining their efficient utilization is a key.