Answering my own q, I must have been too sleepy last night! Here is a code snippet.
using ESRI.ArcGIS.Display;
GlobalScreenDisplaySettings g = new GlobalScreenDisplaySettingsClass();
bool yes = g.CanEnableHardwareAcceleration();
if (yes) g.EnableHardwareAcceleration = true;
The funny part is that when I run this, it says it CAN enable acceleration, but the g.EnableHardwareAcceleration property remains FALSE. I am running on a desktop with OpenGL 3.1 compatible card so it should not be a hardware limitation. I will try testing on some more computers.
Brian