I have tried this on 3 different aircraft with great success, the Carenado Bonanza, A2A Cherokee and Alabeo Piper Sport, so it will for sure work for others as well.

 

The antialiasing in 3.2 seems improved, but the cockpit panels and gauges still shimmer alot in some aircraft if you don't use 4xSGAA, which as you know is a framekiller when flying through heavier clouds.

 

So to begin with, disable SGAA if you have it on, set 4x or 8x AA in the sim and then go download DxtBMP if you don't already have it. Imagetool for FSX/P3D should also work fine.

 

DxtBMP supports both bmp and dds files and can be downloaded from here: http://www.mwgfx.co.uk/programs/dxtbmp.htm

Link at the bottom of the page.

 

Let's take the Carenado Bonanza as an example.

 

First make backups of the texture folders, just in case. For the Bonanza we will make changes to the textures.common, texture.interior1 and texture.interior2.

 

So here's how you do it, it's all about mipmaps!

 

If you check the file sizes in textures.common for example, you'll see they are 257KB, 1025KB and 4097KB depending on their size. These numbers however tells you they are NOT mipmapped.

 

So load up DxtBMP and on the right hand side under "MipMaps" make sure the "Include when saving" box is checked.

 

Now it's just a matter of loading one texture at a time into DxtBMP and straight away save it again, overwriting the original file.

 

You'll notice the file size grew a little, which means it now includes mipmaps.

 

Do this at least for all the larger detailed textures. You can do them all, it won't hurt anything, You can do the exterior textures as well. Knock yourselves out

 

Also in P3D, the "Mipmap VC Panels" should be checked, otherwise your GPS displays will still be shimmering.

 

There you go, that should keep you busy for a while :wink:

Thanks a lot Peter, very instructive post ;-)

Are there any side effects with mipmapping? I am wondering why Carenado did not do the job for their aircrafts?

 

 

I am wondering why Carenado did not do the job for their aircrafts?

 

I guess because in FS9 and FSX, not mipmapping textures that are always close, like cockpit textures, used to be the norm.

No obvious side effects, there should be some image quality degredation as you're effectively re compressing the image, but the loss has to be minimal, because I haven't noticed it.

Make backups before you try it so you can easily switch back if necessary.

Hmmm, why did you change texture.common when we are dealing only with gauges? So "interior1" and "interior2" are important.

Anyway I will try this since I must use FXAA just for gauges, but they are a bit blurry then.

 

Thanks for the advice!

 

cheers

:smile:  Please report back your finding thank you ....

Interesting... I already wondered why the Aerosoft Airbus with all its small knobs and buttons and loads of text on screens looks absolutely GORGEOUS while for instance the RealAir Legacy has shimmering jaggies all over the place and looks a lot less good! Why don't developers know about this and add mipmaps to all planes they offer for P3D...? I might have to give this a try (after figuring out which textures to edit or not).

 

BTW this also might explain why some are very happy with 3.2's AA and others aren't. I wasn't happy at all with the AA in the Legacy but became very happy with the Airbus! 3.2's AA has improved but you need a proper VC to actually see it!

This might also be helpful:

 

http://www.avsim.com/topic/471107-guide-to-mipmapping-and-optimising-textures/

 

 

 

Vic

Flight1 have just released a P3D version of their great jet, the C510 Mustang. It is a bit of a frame hog though...    would any of these measures help with that. It uses large Garmin screens , can these methods be applied to them ? 

Hmmm, why did you change texture.common when we are dealing only with gauges?

 

Because we aren't only dealing with gauges. Panel and other interior textures need mipmapping too.

 

And yes, Vic, that guide does indeed go deeper into the subject. I hadn't seen it before.

There has to be a reason it's not being done on the developer's side. I simply cannot believe that they are all ignorant to this. It would be nice to get input from someone who actually is a developer and as to why  this method isn't being done 10+ years on since FSX?

There has to be a reason it's not being done on the developer's side. I simply cannot believe that they are all ignorant to this. It would be nice to get input from someone who actually is a developer and as to why  this method isn't being done 10+ years on since FSX?

 

+1

There has to be a reason it's not being done on the developer's side. I simply cannot believe that they are all ignorant to this. It would be nice to get input from someone who actually is a developer and as to why  this method isn't being done 10+ years on since FSX?

 

I repaint A2A aircraft and spend a good bit of time on the A2A forum, more specifically in the repainter forum. A2A does not include mipmaps in their textures to avoid ugly pop-in and blurry textures. I know firsthand because after completing my first repaint, the users complained that my textures were blurry. Come to find out - it's because I exported the texture files with mipmaps. Haven't made that mistake since.

 

I won't be adding mipmaps to my cockpit textures as a solution for shimmering.

 

But if it works for you, go for it! It doesn't have adverse affects as far as I know. In fact, you may GAIN performance, which is the intended purpose of mipmaps.

 

For those who don't know, this is what a mipapped texture looks like:

 

 

Several resolutions of the same texture are included in one file, and the game calls up the appropriate instance, depending on a variety of conditions. If the texture is NOT mipmapped, the single hires texture will load by default.

 

So, if you see a blurry texture on your aircraft, understand that a lower resolution instance of the texture is being called upon from within the mipmapped texture.

There has to be a reason it's not being done on the developer's side. I simply cannot believe that they are all ignorant to this. It would be nice to get input from someone who actually is a developer and as to why  this method isn't being done 10+ years on since FSX?

Yes i agree, its like that other post a while back that said to reduce all your scenery textures resolution to 1024 using a program called optimise textures, it opens a can of worms.... and i found to reduce shimmering and gain clarity in the VC i just unticked the mipmaps feature in P3d options.

Haha, why doesn't a developer do this themselves? It requires extra work and if no one is going to complain about it, why should a developer bother with it? It's rare to see commercial products these days without mipmapped textures, though.