I'm afraid not (probably depends on video card, but anyways you can't save a lot), but you'll save some video memory. But I have a suggestion: Cut down the number of tris, 1000 are far too many for crowd people, if there is a chance that the player will come close to the crowd, then you can swap the nearest low-poly models with your high-poly models. And if it should look like a crowd, then you'll need the same models not to be rendeered at the same frame (or It will look dumb). What project do you need the crowd for, by the way.