nope, there was a patch that enabled 3.0 on farCry for the geforce 6 cards (and newer of course) but both games are native sm 2.0. HL2 still is. the hdr in lost coast is not the hardware based sm 3.0 variety used in games like aoe and oblivion, it is valve's own home-brew of hdr using 2.0, that is why it looks just supple on my old 9700pro that is only sm2.0 capable.