HiWhat does Bilinear and Trilinear filtering do? Which one should you use?Stelios

They filter. More than that you don't need to know as you MUST use trilinear filtering in FS to obtain anything resembling decent picture picture quality. DO NOT try the tips in the correct forum about switching off the filtering in the sim for your card. Use trilinear only, set Anisotropic Filtering to 4x or 8x. Also, Anti-Aliasing OFF in the sim, 4x in the card setttings and go fly.Allcott

Like a screen is made up of pixels, textures are made up of texels. When drawing an image, a graphics card has to map these texels to the screen. This is done by texture mapping.There are a lot of different methods for this, the choice usually has an important impact to the rendering speed. The fastest method is to take a pixel and see which texel is projected the closest to that position. The resulting pixel then gets its color from that one texel. This algorithm actually works quite well, but can suffer from various problem when objects are small, or with odd angles of view. More sophisticated techniques combine more than one texel per pixel The most often used in practice are bilinear filtering or trilinear filtering. Bilinear filtering is used to smooth flat surfaces by averaging the colors of adjacent pixels, which blurs them and removes blockiness when viewed up close. For a higher quality, one uses anisotropic filtering In 3D computer graphics, anisotropic filtering is a method of enhancing the image quality of objects located far away from the camera. Like bilinear and trilinear filtering it eliminates aliasing effects, but introduces less blur in the process and thus preserves more detail.Etc. etc....Having said this with AF set to 8 in the driver settings I can see absolutely no difference in IQ between none, bilinear or trilinear filtering (this applies for FS only). What I can see with my ATI 9800XT is that the ground textures load a lot faster when I set filterng to none in the FS settings.Ah, and before I forget it: I really don't like that cynical tone and manner which has found its way in these forums. The amount of impoliteness and arrogance has really reached an annoying level. Whenever someone looks for advice or is offering one of his findings it seems at least one of the cynics feels the urge to jump in. This forum has seen better days.Alex

Nice explanation Alex, thanks.

> More than that you don't need to know as you>MUST use trilinear filtering in FS to obtain anything>resembling decent picture picture quality. Sorry Allcott - I must disagree with you on both statements above.First- it's always nice to know what is going on.Second- these settings may suit your system -they certainly don't suit mine - trilinear produces a lockup and in addition the picture quality is no different(prior to the lock).I think - as said so often- every system differs- and trial and error will get you eventually to the settings best suited to yours.For reference my system (below)- produces a fairly steady 30+ fps almost everywhere(locked at 40)DaveMSI KT6V-LSR(MS-7021)AMD Athlon XP3000.768 MB 333mhz DDRAMTi4200/128MB GPU.66.81 drivers(AA 2X, AF 2X)Maxtor 80GB HDD(7200rpm)Maxtor 40GB HDD(7200rpm)LG CDRWLG CDR 52Xo/b AC97 soundThermaltake 480W PSUWinXP- SP1.Direct X 9cSaitek Cyborg 3D JoystickNothing overclocked.

Thanks Alex for all the info. So does this mean that with trilinear you get "clearer" image than bilinear? or it doesn't really matter?Stelios

Nice post, Alex.While this link is from an ATI site http://www.teamradeon.com/articles/guides/...guide_page3.asp the info about filtering pertains to any card and any game. The buffering capabilites of a video card/driver combo is quite important to gamers. And while it's true that some may not see any difference between double or triple buffering, it's nonetheless critical to take into account how a video card handles buffering. A less efficient buffering design can lead to such issues as slow texture loading, texture blocking, and stuttering.Generally, triple buffering is much more desirable but only if the card's buffer design and the system bus handle it well. Personally, I would be buying a new card and/or motherboard if my system didn't perform well while in triple buffering mode.Hope this helps,Greg

Now I got it after reading this:http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/2...timized-03.htmlIn anyway thank you all.Stelios

Very interesting stuff Greg. Wasn't really aware of some of the contents. > .....but D3D-based titles must include TB support.So what about FS9?Alex

>>Ah, and before I forget it: I really don't like that cynical>tone and manner which has found its way in these forums. The>amount of impoliteness and arrogance has really reached an>annoying level. Whenever someone looks for advice or is>offering one of his findings it seems at least one of the>cynics feels the urge to jump in. >This forum has seen better days.>>Alex>If that was intended for me then understand that Stelios found his answer in a technical forum, didn't ask the question in this groups technical forum, and clearly hadn't searched on the forum under either bilinear or trilinear or the answer would have been found. The cynics might actually argue that is YOUR willingness to tolerate such a waste of everyone elses time that has brought the forum to the state you think it's in. Which it isn't anyway.The general question "what is etc" had been asked before, so there really wasn't any need to repeat it. Also the question was not specifically related to Flight Sim, therefore did not belong in this forum. We have two hardware and technical forums for a good reason. So I provided a brief answer on the implications of filtering for FS, based on the small details on Stelios's rig in oe of his toher posts. The advice regarding AF and AA and the various combinations may hold good for ATI cards, but can result in CTD's and BSOD's if you have an Nvidia card. Allcott

Allcott,yes, that was directed to you. Though I understand your intention and agree to some of what you say that was not what you answered to the original posters question. Instead you fired away an what I feel impolite and patronizing answer (but that is just me), that not only ignored the question but also ignored what some of us have found as a fact at least for the ATI cards. And if I remember correctly nowhere does Stelios say what type of card he owns. BTW if combining the basic driver settings of a Nvidia card to your likings leads to BSODs and CTDs I really don't know what kind of drivers they have.That's it. I am tired of these word fights and I really think some here use this forum for the sole purpose of having them. I will not get into another one here especially as English is not my native language.Alex

"So what about FS9?"It does, but clearly, newer titles do so better than FS.Our sim is much different (and challenged) than the popular FPS games. For the most part the FPS games work in much smaller areas and thus require far less distant rendering. Each subsequent version of FS utlilizes later versions of DirectX and therefor make use of MS's API's... so there is hope that as software (and hardware) advances we'll continue to see improvements in how buffering is done.Cheers,Greg

>More than that you don't need to know as you>MUST use trilinear filtering in FS to obtain anything>resembling decent picture picture quality. That is simply flatly untrue. Some people get/see this superior image quality with the filtering ON some don't. I don't see any meaningful difference in picture quality with it ON/OFF in FS9. So word "MUST" is nothing short of hyperbole.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

Allcott....Your goal is efficiency and organization. You want forums with categories, and the contents in those categories to be consistent. You want forums in which questions get asked, answered, and then that's the end of that concern. Right?That is not the natural order for many folks, but I understand your goal. Because it is not the natural way for so many people, your goal will continue to frustrate you, unless you can make a private forum made up only of folks that think like you do. When you air your frustration, you add negative energy to others, but with no hope of a payback in changed behavior.Try to look at it from a big picture....whether folks ask redundant questions, as long as there are folks that enjoy giving the answers and you aren't forced to participate...then just allowing folks to communicate as they tend to is the path of best happiness.When it disturbs your desire for order...just ignore it.Think of this too....if questions about filtering were not asked today, becuase it had been asked and answered 2 months ago...I wouldn't have learned about it today. I didn't ask the question, and I didn't even think of the question, but reading this thread taught me something, and I like that. If things were so structured as you imagine it "should" be, then I would only learn the things I LOOK for, and there would be less for me to stumble onto.Cheers,Bob Bernstein

Allcort""If that was intended for me then understand that Stelios found his answer in a technical forum, didn't ask the question in this groups technical forum, and clearly hadn't searched on the forum under either bilinear or trilinear or the answer would have been found. The cynics might actually argue that is YOUR willingness to tolerate such a waste of everyone elses time that has brought the forum to the state you think it's in. Which it isn't anyway.""Sorry if I upset you with my question (not being in the right forum and not