>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 BernsteinYes, that works too, providing your not stumbling over the same information time and time again, getting in the way of the `good stuff`. And you do have to read it to find out it doesn't interest you. Just because you learnt about it today doesn't make it right to have the question asked in the wrong forum? What about those people who go to the right forum and expect to find the answer? Or those who use the search utility? Could you, if the forum was an organised, ordered place, perhaps have stumbled over the previous references to the subject, and learnt about it two months ago? As a matter of fact I agree that these extended number of forum headers here does nobody any favours, but the rules are quite clear and this was a technical question not directly related to FS. Anyway, Stelios has learned to use the search facility and got the answer to his question, and it's only occupied about an hour of collective time this thread, so not too bad by the standards of some days!Allcott

Here's a quick explanation of what texture filtering does that the layperson should be able to grasp:As you probably know, modern 3D graphics cards apply reduced quality textures to objects based on their distance from the player. This is called mipmapping. It saves a huge amount of work for the card and actually ends up making things look more lifelike as this is what happens in real life - you lose the ability to discern details on an object with increasing distance.What the three modern types of filtering do is smooth the transition between the mipmap levels by creating something of a gradient between them. The details of the process are technical and involve interpolating pixel differences along an axis and other such things - there are several good technical explanations out there at sites like HardOCP or Tom's Hardware if you want to know how it really works. Bilinear and trilinear both still end up with somewhat of a dividing line between the texture levels. (you can see this really well in a first person game by looking at a floor out in front of you as you walk. Anisotropic is the current best form of filtering and is basically trilinear with added corrections for perspective and angle. It produces a pretty smooth gradient between the mipmap levels and you end up not really noticing it, which is the desired effect.Note that texture filtering should NOT be confused with Full Scene Anti-Aliasing (FSAA or just AA for short) which is used to smooth out the jagged edges on polygons such as mountains and your aircraft.

I have a quick question for all you experts. FS provides a facility for bilinear and triliniar filtering. However advanced drivers for nVidia also provide that capability at the system level. If triliniar is selected in the driver, does one need to also add it inside of MSFS? Which one is best for MSFS, or does it make a difference?Bob

There seems to be a difference of opinion on this (if this has been covered before, please don't yell at me.).I have a 9800XT and have texture filtering set to high quality in my settings. I also have NO filtering enabled within MSFS. My result was more framerates and an overall smoother sim.WITH THAT SAID, THIS WILL NOT WORK FOR EVERYONE and it is very much dependant not only on your type of video card, but on your drivers it seems.It doesn't hurt anything to try both settings to see. Regards,Mike T.

Mike,Well this will be an interesting day for me. I did what you did last night on a flight from KMSO to KDEN. As the sun was setting it seems that my frames went up also. I use the nVidia Omega drivers. On Monday I am going to fly KDEN to KMIA and see what happens.Bob