Well, that's what this person is claiming (thanks for the link, Arathorn!), so naturally I decided to give it a bash. Have a look at what you actually get.

Basically, what is being claimed is that one can copy all of the system settings in the config files from the Very High section into the High section - in theory, allowing the DX10-only effects to be used in DX9. So let's see then:

Light beams through foliage

DX9 High Settings

DX10 Very High Settings

DX9 "Hacked" Settings

Water effects & HDR Lighting

DX9 High Settings

DX10 Very High Settings

DX9 "Hacked" Settings

Extra geometry & Parallax mapping on the ground

DX9 High Settings

DX10 Very High Settings

DX9 "Hacked" Settings

Certainly, some effects are carried across - for example, light beams from the Sun cutting through trees, as well improvements to the water and sky. For others, it's a bit hard to tell but one thing is absolutely certain though: you'll take another chunk out of your performance. Crysis, it would seem, is quite happy about making mincemeat out of any PC that you'd care to throw at it.

Please note that you're not getting DX10 on XP - all this is showing is that Crytek coded the shaders and effects for the Very High setting in both SM4.0 and SM3.0. You might ask, at this point, what's actually different, then? It was interesting to note that whilst using the "hacked" settings, the in-game menu listed all of the details as "High" bar the shader quality, which was "Custom." It could be the case that it's only the shaders that are really used but whatever the case may be, Crytek have got some explaining to do about why they've insisted that only DX10 was suitable for the Very High settings - sure it's still a performance killer in DX9, but that's not really different from DX10.

Edit: Having gone through the shader cache file in the demo, one can pick out the following shader files that is present in the D3D10 (DX10) set, but not in the D3D9 (DX9) one:

Vertex Shaders

_Shared@Common_ShadowGen_VS_DX10.fxcb
Particles@Particle_ShadowVS_GSPassThrough.fxcb
Particles@Particle_VS_GSPassThrough.fxcb
ParticlesNoMat@Particle_ShadowVS_GSPassThrough.fxcb
ParticlesNoMat@Particle_VS_GSPassThrough.fxcb
WetLayer@WetVS.fxcb

Pixel Shaders

_Shared@Common_ShadowGen_PS_DX10.fxcb
WaterVortex@WaterPS.fxcb

Plus there are the Geometry Shaders, which DX9 doesn't have anyway, which are to do with particles, shadows and stars. This suggests that there isn't a huge difference in the number of effects between DX10 and DX9 but since the shader code is not accessible, it's impossible to tell (certainly to my untrained eye) whether there's any actual difference between the common shaders.

Whatever the case actually is, these brief tests suggest that Crytek have almost certainly deliberately capped DX9 detail settings to ensure that DX10 can look as good as possible.

Comments

	darkneo 2007-10-29 #1 And another lie from Crytek...
	hornycaptain 2007-10-29 #2 ah well they did theire best! But it looks fine to me though.
	Nick[FM] 2007-10-29 #3 It does look sweet, and I have a feeling this whole shader-thing is a marketing decision. They need to have something special for gamers with DX10 hardware, and forcing some shaders to be "DX10"-only is one way to do it. :)
	LuckyNV 2007-10-29 #4 busted! hahaha :D
	Jarnis 2007-10-29 #5 Ah, but what now...? Will the final Crysis remove the ability to tweak some of the missing shaders back in, or will they be artificially limited to DX10 only? If they remove them, customers will cry foul, and it could even harm the sales of the game. If they leave them in (or even make them officially available), the case for DX10 in Crysis is very weak (potentially pissing off video card manufacturers and Microsoft, who are expecting that Crysis will be the great savior and sell boatload of Vista and DX10 cards for them) Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
	Marvin_The_Martian 2007-10-29 #6 Quote: Originally Posted by Jarnis Ah, but what now...? Will the final Crysis remove the ability to tweak some of the missing shaders back in, or will they be artificially limited to DX10 only? If they remove them, customers will cry foul, and it could even harm the sales of the game. If they leave them in (or even make them officially available), the case for DX10 in Crysis is very weak (potentially pissing off video card manufacturers and Microsoft, who are expecting that Crysis will be the great savior and sell boatload of Vista and DX10 cards for them) Damned if they do, damned if they don't. Choose the consumers, choose the consumers choose the consumers!!!! As in, they pay to play the game, don't think MS is paying them to release a DX10 selling title are they?
	Jarnis 2007-10-29 #7 No, but NVIDIA might be...
	Marvin_The_Martian 2007-10-29 #8 Hehe sponsord game yes I know, idk about how it works in reality thoug, do they get a fixed percentage or something? Can't imagine a company telling another company to make something exclusive so they can both make money on it.... sarcasm offcourse How does it work fo real though I really wonder
	snowcrash512 2007-10-29 #9 You would think they would cover their tracks a bit more if its an artificial thing... I mean come on, did they really think the entire gaming community was below the level of copy and paste...
	powerarmour 2007-10-30 #10 Bit of a screw up there, though possibly there is more to it regarding performance (on Vista/DX10) once the full release arrives. But still, another blow for DX10 and Vista gaming in general. If your a pure PC gamer, there's not a compelling incentive 'yet' to switch to Vista from XP, as any extra DX10 eye candy seems to come with too much of a performance hit. Why can't developers just use DX10 for performance reasons alone, rather than try to increase the effects over the DX9 version...?, obviously the current plan still seems to be to brainwash the public into buying better hardware as usual. No wonder consoles are doing well at the moment... :)
	reactivator11 2007-10-30 #11 Quote: With these settings I'm running the game between 15-25 FPS at 1440x900 and (wait for it) 8x AA, and it looks PERFECT. Best of all, this is in XP. Smooth ??
	Dirk_Diggler 2007-10-30 #12 Nobody is asking the "right" questions.... As in why was the truth bent, why are these affects being presented as DX10 only effects, when DX9 can do them, and why is performance actually better in DX9 using the "hacked" settings. And finally, why was this done, and don't even try the "it was either locking it, or No AA line", because AA is blocked if post processing is in use, post processing is always on by default.
	Marvin_The_Martian 2007-10-30 #13 Quote: Originally Posted by Dirk_Diggler Nobody is asking the "right" questions.... As in why was the truth bent, why are these affects being presented as DX10 only effects, when DX9 can do them, and why is performance actually better in DX9 using the "hacked" settings. And finally, why was this done, and don't even try the "it was either locking it, or No AA line", because AA is blocked if post processing is in use, post processing is always on by default. Think those questions are easily visible if you read through the lines
	Dirk_Diggler 2007-10-30 #14 Quote: Originally Posted by Marvin_The_Martian Think those questions are easily visible if you read through the lines We all know money was involved somewhere, but we can speculate until the cows come home, thats all it will stay at until the facts are laid bare by Crytek. Bottom line is, somebody lied.....
	Marvin_The_Martian 2007-10-30 #15 Quote: Originally Posted by Dirk_Diggler We all know money was involved somewhere, but we can speculate until the cows come home, thats all it will stay at until the facts are laid bare by Crytek. Bottom line is, somebody lied..... Yeah, either that or we're not seeing the whole picture because it's just the demo. Anyway, it's not the first time someone lied, not the last time either and we'll probably won't get any real answers just a good pr spin.