>   Crysis is a game which is also a demo of the latest 3D hardware features.
> It has several quality settings which define which features are turned on
> or off.
> 
>   The program will not let you choose the highest quality setting
> ("very high") unless you are running the program in Vista with a DX10
> compatible graphics card. It only lets you choose the second-highest
> quality setting ("high"). Clearly it's trying to tell that the highest
> quality setting turns on DX10-only (and thus Vista-only) features, so
> they are not available in XP and DX9.
> 
>   It seems that this is a hoax. Just a marketing campaign. Yes, the
> "very high" quality setting does indeed turn on several additional
> rendering features, but the hoax is that these rendering features *do*
> work in XP with a DX9 graphics card, and they do so at perfectly acceptable
> speeds. Not allowing to choose this highest quality option unless you are
> running Vista and a DX10 graphics card has nothing to do with lacking
> hardware/OS support, but it's just an artificial limitation.
> 
>   The thing is, at least in the demo version of the program, you can
> tweak its settings file manually and make all the "high quality" settings
> to be turned on in the "high" settings, which the game allows you to choose,
> and the features will work even if you are just running XP with DX9.
> 
>   So much for "Vista-only" features...
> 
> http://www.crysis-online.com/forum/index.php?topic=11837.0
> 
Some people on that forum were saying that if you don't have DX10, those 
features would run on the CPU instead of the GPU. Sounds like BS as 
well: If it was done by the CPU, the framerates would be a lot lower. 
People who edited the config were getting framerates *even better than 
on Vista*.

Also, it would use the CPU if your GPU doesn't support the features and 
you force them enabled anyway; but if you don't have the interface to do 
such effects (DX10), there would be no way for the game to get those 
effects.

So it's definitely as you say and as most people said on the forum: DX9 
can do all those effects.

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