The title says all.

Scud Racer. 1996. A year before FF7 released on PS1. The same year as Mario 64. Scud Racer(no it was not 4k then). This looks better than many PS2 racing games in the early 2000s. I'd argue it's up with Crysis as being the most well ahead of its time graphically.

Shenmue

I think the game has terrible gameplay design a lot of the time. But the graphics are omg for its time. Honestly the fighting and exploration are good too. That game held up visually for almost two more generations.

Naughty Dog games tend to be this way. Those guys know their Playstations inside out and can pull of amazing things with that tech each gen.

Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast looked like pre-rendered CG when it came out.

Crysis remained ahead of anything on consoles for 6 years.

Rogue Squadron II was a Gamecube launch title yet remained one of the best looking games of its entire generation.

Gears of War was such a quantum leap in graphics it was hard to believe.

I love Shenmue and yeah that game was stunning when it came out. Looked better than PC games. Magazines giving the heads up in screenshots it was not pre-rendered which didn't seem possible.

Hi-Ten Bomberman.

OK, I need a little context on this. This is from 1993. At first, it looks worse than most SNES games, right? Here is the thing. Hi-Ten Bomberman was in HD in 1993 on a widescreen TV. 10 players. This is the first HD game ever made. 12 years before Xbox 360 would launch the HD generation.

Unreal was 2 years ahead but it's funny how blocky it looks today.

Years ahead is difficult to say but i remember GTA IV, deforming cars, flying through windshields, the way gravity seemed to affect object(bodies). Coming from San Andreas it was a huge leap forward.

Yeah, Metroid Prime would still look stunning today in 1080p on the Switch. It's actually remarkable how well some games from the PS2/GC era still hold up once their resolution gets boosted and they're presented in widescreen: Metroid Prime 1+2, Mario Sunshine, Resident Evil Remake, Resident Evil 4, Wind Waker... it just shows how little power it takes to produce great looking games.

OT: Resident Evil Remake looked incredible for its time and still looks amazing today in the HD remaster. Of course, it's probably not technically ahead of its time as it used pre-rendered backgrounds, but it looks stunning even today. Also, Shenmue. Couldn't believe what I saw when I saw screenshots of the game appearing in print magazines back then.

Crysis... and anything developed by Crytek.

Come to think of it quite a lot of Gamecube games were stunning, as mentioned above Rogue Squadron 2 and then 3 are stunners, Star Fox Adventures was beautiful, F Zero GX at 60 fps and Resident Evil 4.