Bull****, you miss none of the visual effects, if the card supports
DX8 fallback.. See my other post.

Yes you do. Such as with Morrowind. If you have a DirectX 8 card the water
looks almost like real water. If you try playing the game with a DirectX 7 card
the water does not look as nice because its missing the DirectX 8 features that
make the water look realistic.