yea, I had it runing on my TI 4200 and I was on Shader Model 1.0 and it looked so bad, NO DETAIL. So runing Shader model 3.0 with my X1600Pro it was diffrent, More detail and wow!
Wow, that shot with trhat car...the grass actually...it looks like grass!!!
I have a Shader Model 3 card, but haven't noticed anything really different in the games i play.
In F.E.A.R though for example, a new form of mapping is used called Parrallax mapping, and when you shoot a bullet into the wall, instead of it being just a bump map, its a real looking hole thats very deep and realistic in size.