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Hitman Blood Money and dgV2: Can it fix broken reflections?

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First post, by OldGameGlitches

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(I made a post on this earlier in the Windows subforum that I deleted because it seems like this subforum is the better place to put it, since discussions of graphics bugs in other Hitman games have been posted here and I'm thinking dgVoodoo is the best chance of a solution to my problem.)

On two separate Windows 10 machines now, I've noticed that in the Hitman Blood Money level "Till Death Do Us Part," reflections on some surfaces are broken. The bug may be present in other levels but I only remember noticing it in "Till Death Do Us Part." If I go and look in a mirror, for example, I see solid grey, rather than a reflection. If I pan the camera down so that it's looking up at the mirror, then I can see a reflection, but as I pan it up, the mirror fills with grey until it's solid grey. Certain windows, or they might be glass doors, are messed up looking, and I found one door that's supposed to be a wood door like any other, but it has a shiny quality as if it's being accidentally rendered as partly glass. Please see these screenshots that show the grey mirror and shiny wooden door bugs.

HBM grey mirror 1 - Copy.png
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HBM grey mirror 1 - Copy.png
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534.34 KiB
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1605 views
File license
Public domain
HBM fully grey mirror with camera panned up - Copy.png
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HBM fully grey mirror with camera panned up - Copy.png
File size
551.24 KiB
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1605 views
File license
Public domain
HBM normal mirror reflection with camera panned down - Copy.png
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HBM normal mirror reflection with camera panned down - Copy.png
File size
547.83 KiB
Views
1605 views
File license
Public domain
HBM shiny door 1 - Copy.png
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HBM shiny door 1 - Copy.png
File size
500.15 KiB
Views
1605 views
File license
Public domain
HBM shiny door 2 - Copy.png
Filename
HBM shiny door 2 - Copy.png
File size
477.48 KiB
Views
1605 views
File license
Public domain

So far my attempts to fix this have included the following:

1. Tweaking all of HBM's graphics settings to see if any one of them makes the problem go away. No setting change has made any difference--even switching from shader model 3.0 to 2.0 did nothing.
2. Running the game as administrator and with Windows XP compatibility mode.
3. Running the game using dgVoodoo 2.8.
4. Running the game using other D3D9 wrappers.

The problem appears in exactly the same way every time no matter what I attempt. I'm not sure if particular dgVoodoo settings might be likely to fix it--I'm unsure which video card to pick, for example. I found an old YouTube video of a playthrough of this level, recorded on a PC that was probably using WinXP, and it was clear that mirror reflections worked normally, so this isn't a bug that's always been in HBM. I also found a much more recently uploaded playthrough of the level, and in that video I saw a solid grey mirror. Strangely I haven't been able to find any other reports of this bug.

Does anyone know what might be causing it or how it might be fixed?

If relevant, here are my system specs:

OS: Win10 64-bit
GPU: RTX 4090
CPU: i9-13900K
RAM: 64GB DDr5 (don't know exact model)

Any help would be highly appreciated.

Reply 2 of 11, by OldGameGlitches

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feda wrote on 2023-04-04, 18:07:

You should probably post a savegame for this level for testing.

OK. Unfortunately the way HBM works, there aren't any individual level saves except when you're playing a level--you can save at specific points while playing a level and load those when playing if needed, but if you quit the game, you have to start at the beginning of the level again. So all I could post is my HBM profile, which would have the Till Death Do Us Part level, and most others, unlocked, but wouldn't allow people to load the level at a point where the player is in front of a mirror, for instance. Should I post that anyway?

Reply 4 of 11, by OldGameGlitches

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Dege wrote on 2023-04-04, 20:22:

Yes, you can attach the profile itself with that level. But, is it a dgvoodoo bug and it works natively or is a similar game problem like the 3rd part has?
Hitman Contracts Missing Waterfall Effect

Thanks for your reply. The bug is present natively, it appears with or without dgVoodoo, or any other D3D9 wrapper I've tried for that matter, so it seems to be something that's cropped up relatively recently with HBM on modern computers, I'm guessing due either to Win10 or maybe changes with video cards.

I've attached my HBM folder that, according to pcgamingwiki, is where the save data is stored. I'm not sure which files are needed and which aren't so I just attached the whole folder as a zip.

Filename
HBM profile.zip
File size
1.15 MiB
Downloads
54 downloads
File license
Public domain

Reply 5 of 11, by feda

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OldGameGlitches wrote on 2023-04-04, 20:28:
Thanks for your reply. The bug is present natively, it appears with or without dgVoodoo, or any other D3D9 wrapper I've tried fo […]
Show full quote
Dege wrote on 2023-04-04, 20:22:

Yes, you can attach the profile itself with that level. But, is it a dgvoodoo bug and it works natively or is a similar game problem like the 3rd part has?
Hitman Contracts Missing Waterfall Effect

Thanks for your reply. The bug is present natively, it appears with or without dgVoodoo, or any other D3D9 wrapper I've tried for that matter, so it seems to be something that's cropped up relatively recently with HBM on modern computers, I'm guessing due either to Win10 or maybe changes with video cards.

I've attached my HBM folder that, according to pcgamingwiki, is where the save data is stored. I'm not sure which files are needed and which aren't so I just attached the whole folder as a zip.

HBM profile.zip

I was able to load your profile, however the level in question is not accessible. It only lets me load three other levels.

I noticed that your screens look a bit odd. Maybe you just saved them in a bad compression format and this isn't relevant. But there's horrible color banding and something is wrong with the gamma. In my game the graphics look smooth.

Reply 6 of 11, by OldGameGlitches

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feda wrote on 2023-04-05, 04:47:
OldGameGlitches wrote on 2023-04-04, 20:28:
Thanks for your reply. The bug is present natively, it appears with or without dgVoodoo, or any other D3D9 wrapper I've tried fo […]
Show full quote
Dege wrote on 2023-04-04, 20:22:

Yes, you can attach the profile itself with that level. But, is it a dgvoodoo bug and it works natively or is a similar game problem like the 3rd part has?
Hitman Contracts Missing Waterfall Effect

Thanks for your reply. The bug is present natively, it appears with or without dgVoodoo, or any other D3D9 wrapper I've tried for that matter, so it seems to be something that's cropped up relatively recently with HBM on modern computers, I'm guessing due either to Win10 or maybe changes with video cards.

I've attached my HBM folder that, according to pcgamingwiki, is where the save data is stored. I'm not sure which files are needed and which aren't so I just attached the whole folder as a zip.

HBM profile.zip

I was able to load your profile, however the level in question is not accessible. It only lets me load three other levels.

I noticed that your screens look a bit odd. Maybe you just saved them in a bad compression format and this isn't relevant. But there's horrible color banding and something is wrong with the gamma. In my game the graphics look smooth.

I'm sorry, I forgot to mention that in order to get the full level list (that I've unlocked so far) you need to select "EXPERT" difficulty after choosing my profile. I'm pretty sure on the difficulty below that one, only three are unlocked, as you describe. In any case, thanks for taking the time to try the save game out.

Assuming my profile works and you can access Till Death Do Us Part on expert, I should explain briefly how to quickly get to the mirror to check the reflection. TDDUP starts in a small dock area. If you go right then left then right, you'll see an area with a tent, people dancing, and a big white mansion. Run up to the white mansion and go to the far left side (from Hitman's perspective) of the front of it. There'll be a white door with a "Private" sign next to it near two people who are kissing. Run up and pick the lock, which will alert the two people (you have to do this part and the rest quickly to avoid getting shot to death before you can see the mirror). When the lock is picked, you'll go into a room with a guard in a chair at the end who's by three doors. Take the door on your right, and through that door open the next door. The room you'll then go into has a mirror that you can check the reflection in.

And yes the horrible color banding and overall bad look are from Vogons reducing the size of my screenshots to accept them as uploads. The image quality on the whole is good when I play.

Reply 8 of 11, by OldGameGlitches

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feda wrote on 2023-04-05, 06:47:

Yeah, I'm also getting a grey mirror. 1060 GTX with 531.29 drivers.

Thanks for confirming, very helpful.

Btw no idea if it's related to the reflections bug, but I've found some reports of another graphics bug, which seems to only affect modern setups playing HBM, that appears to have no known fix either:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/6860/discussio … 91225201177181/

https://www.hitmanforum.com/t/hitman-blood-mo … a-bodybag/13778

https://steamcommunity.com/app/6860/discussio … 03565750335968/

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