This comments seems a little bit shortsighted. Where do you stop? Is it okay if you write your own interface to the hardware drivers, bypassing DirectX/OpenGL? Or do you also have to write your own drivers to the graphics and sound? Your own operating system? Design your own hardware? There's no such thing as an "all-in" app.
All of those things have certainly been done on the demoscene. In the demoscene, size-limited competitions have implicit convections, unwritten rules if you will, to ensure that everybody competes on fair terms. For 4kb intros it is currently accepted (if not encouraged) to use the DirectX/OpenGL APIs. It is also considered acceptable to use the font-writing API's, and some groups exploit this to generate vector graphics out of obscure font symbols.
For sound, it's expected that you either write your own software synthesizer (or collaborate with somebody who has written one), or use the MIDI APIs. For 1kb intros, MIDI API sounds are expected. There was a big controversy in 2008, when the 4kb intro Texas (http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=51448) won the 4kb competition at NVScene. Many people considered its use of samples from mp3s included with the Windows operating system cheating, since it went outside the bounds of what is considered acceptable use of the OS resources.
So there are some implicit conventions about what you can and cannot do, and if you want to compete fairly and impress your fellow sceners, you should follow them.
Of course, most demoscene parties feature the wild demo competitions, where pretty much anything goes. Demosceners always reward hard work and clever hacks, so if you want to impress, create a demo on your self-built hardware and enter into this competition. You will have a fair chance at one of the prizes.
All of those things have certainly been done on the demoscene. In the demoscene, size-limited competitions have implicit convections, unwritten rules if you will, to ensure that everybody competes on fair terms. For 4kb intros it is currently accepted (if not encouraged) to use the DirectX/OpenGL APIs. It is also considered acceptable to use the font-writing API's, and some groups exploit this to generate vector graphics out of obscure font symbols.
For sound, it's expected that you either write your own software synthesizer (or collaborate with somebody who has written one), or use the MIDI APIs. For 1kb intros, MIDI API sounds are expected. There was a big controversy in 2008, when the 4kb intro Texas (http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=51448) won the 4kb competition at NVScene. Many people considered its use of samples from mp3s included with the Windows operating system cheating, since it went outside the bounds of what is considered acceptable use of the OS resources.
So there are some implicit conventions about what you can and cannot do, and if you want to compete fairly and impress your fellow sceners, you should follow them.
Of course, most demoscene parties feature the wild demo competitions, where pretty much anything goes. Demosceners always reward hard work and clever hacks, so if you want to impress, create a demo on your self-built hardware and enter into this competition. You will have a fair chance at one of the prizes.