How do reflections in games work?

[iman00b]

Like the title says. For example in some games like enter the matrix alot of textures are glossy and have reflections of things. Like when u look at the ground u could see the reflection of a light above you or things like that. Are there ways to disable it? I was told theres some kind of ini string or something to disable this. Thx

EDIT: Now that i think about it, it seems as if reflections were added (kinda) in Dx9 because there werent any reflections (that i know of) in Dx8 games. Maybe its not possible to disable it in games using Dx9?

 

[Bassyhead]

Not really HT. Try posting this in Video, you should get some replies there.

 

[Cogman]

First off I agree, Not highly technical. Secondly, Reflections have been around before DX9, They are present in games like HL (mods, but still, they arnt using DX9).

Next on the list, there is not special universal INI file that magicly changes all the games to not use reflections. Reflections have to be coded into the game and hence the ability to turn them off has to be coded into the game.

Simply enough, we need to know what games you are talking about to disable reflections, other then that you cant turn them off.

 

[iman00b]

Since this is a major problem that could not be figured out for a while now by people, I thought it would be HT. The issue is voodoo video cards. There seems to still be many people who own voodoo still (surprisingly im not the only one). Theres still even 3rd party drivers that are released somewhat regularly. But anyways it seems no one found a way to fix disappearing textures but a guy did mention that he is still working on a way to solve it. He said textures with reflections were the ones that seem to be disappearing. Out of the few DX9 games that do work with a voodoo card, 'highly' reflective textures such as the first level of enter the matrix (the floors and walls etc are supposed to have that glossy marble look) or almost everything in NFSU doesnt show up at all. The game i want to have a "fix" for is hitman 3.

Cliff notes:
voodoo video cards dont show glossy textures in DX9 games
Is there way to remove the reflectiveness from the texture?
Mainly hitman 3


This is what he said
I know abot this transparency problem and I'm doing my best to find a solution.the problem are reflections,every texture that is supposed to be reflective (some floors,walls,etc.) is not displayed at all (on voodoo4/5 cards of course).the solution seems simple-disable all reflection.but to do that,I must know the correct ini variable,and I just cant find it anywhere..

 

[Matthias99]

the solution seems simple-disable all reflection.but to do that,I must know the correct ini variable,and I just cant find it anywhere..

This presumes that said games have the ability to turn off the reflection effect selectively. They might, they might not.

The problem, it seems, is that the Voodoo4/5 cards don't support alpha (transparent) textures properly.

You could, say, buy a GeForce2MX for like 30 bucks...

 

[iman00b]

Im planning on building a new system soon so buying a GF2 seems like a waste of $30. I just really want to play hitman 3 since i liked both 1 and 2 alot

 

[CTho9305]

In that case, http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=33&threadid=1304029