Author of this article is also the creator of new vfx system Notch: <a href="https://www.notch.one/" rel="nofollow">https://www.notch.one/</a><p>Besides that he's a legendary member of demogroup Fairlight as noted below. One of my favourite people to talk to at demoscene events :)
This is old, but it is still an incredibly good writeup of how one can achieve beautiful and impressive GPU particle effects. I loved the demo when it was released and I have watched it again and again over the years. It has a mesmerizing quality to it.
A flaw in this technique is that you only get particles from things on screen. If you want particles to fall from off screen down or float up into view, you have to compensate with a traditional CPU particle emitter.