So, here are two BMPs, 2.86mb zipped, one with mips and one with no mips.I would only like your opinion which one would you prefer? (two files, nomips.bmp and mips.bmp)http://www.Word Not Allowed.dawolf.at/miptest.zipAnd another question, are you using mips or no mips on your aircraft? Prefer blurrier textures, or prefer a bit aliasing???PS. Sorry for the size, it was necessary to keep the maximum quality!

If you look at this screenshot:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...id=220048&page=The texture in that shot was originally unmipped, and thus didn't Antialias on me olde 4200TI. I added mips to the DXT3 texture for just the fuse and tailboom, and it AntiAliased quite well without becoming blurry, even at extreme closeup. In FS2002 mipped textures would get blurry all the time and I usually went into DXTBMP and removed the mips. In FS2004, I add mips if the aircraft's a candidate for one of my screenshots...-John

Thanks John for your reply,That is what I figured also, that if I mip the aircraft, it aliases nicely. But as you might see from my two screenshots, mipped one has blurrier letters. Closer I get, less blurrier it is, of course.Now my problem is, I'd like to get the sharpness of the nonmipped screenshot with the Antialiasing of the mipped shot.Which one would you prefer from those two, anyway?

In my case the shot of the Rotorway is a lot closer than your NWA shots, but I believe the mipped shot looks better--the letters are sharp in the nonmipped shot but more jagged.It's funny how FS2002 aa'd everything regardless of mips being present or not. Some of my most beautiful aircraft shots are from FS2002. My FS2004 setup has worked so well it's been a long time since I've monkeyed with other AA settings (such as forcing AA and leaving FS2004's off). I can't recall if forcing AA works around the mips/nomips question..-John

John, problem in FS2004 are not textures. It's the alpha textures which don't get antialiased, thus giving jaggies. And apparently I can't force them to become AAed. If I remove alpha or make it white, these jaggies disappear.EDIT: Sorry, a correction. If I make alpha white, jaggies still there.

Makes sense, since I noticed some FS2004 textures AA w/o mips and when I think about it, they did not contain alphas (such as aircraft which only used dynamic shine for "reflectivity" vs. the alphas).-John

But now as we talk, I tried to completely remove alphas. How to do that? I have both imagetool and DXTBmp.Thanks!

Initially, I would just try to save the bitmap as 24/32 bit. I think if you try saving as DXT3 or 888-8, there will be an alpha by default, even though it will be set to 255-255-255. However, if the aircraft model is looking for reflective textures, "strange" things can happen when you use a texture without an alpha, such as invisible parts or see thru parts.-John

I just discovered one thing:I saved the bmp as 32bit, without alpha, as you said. I confirmed that is not alpha, and it looked (in a way of AA), same as it did in one of my two shots (the one that is nicely AAed).Basically, no alpha + no mip, gives the same result as does mip + alpha. I mean, graphically.Am I inventing hot water here? :-)EDIT: Btw, do you know of a way how to batch convert many files, BUT to save them every and each one of them in their "previous" format. AFAIK, imagetool does batch, but I can either choose 32bit or DXT3. I'd just like to add mips to all, but keep the format. Thx!

"Am I inventing hot water here?"I guess before I'd go out removing the alphas on my add-on aircraft, I'd have to ask myself which is the lesser of three evils:~1: no alpha, no reflections, no mips, AA~2: alpha, reflections, no AA~3: alpha, mips, reflections, AAI prefer the latter, but would settle for the middle vs. losing reflections altogether. Again, I'm only speaking in terms of MSFS's default AA--forcing AA may solve the question but it does open up other issues. My FS2004 performance was always best with the default FS AA combined with aircraft that utilize option #3.-JohnEdit: Seeing your question/edit, don't know. When I convert textures I usually only convert the fuse/tail/engines/wings. With most aircraft that's just a few textures.

OK, so on with the work - adding mips to my aircraft...Btw. check the EDIT question in my previous post. Promise, last one :-)

Mipmaps *should* be incorporated on external aircraft textures and here's the reason why: Your video card wants to mipmap any object with a texture, even if the textures do not include any mipmaps. That's the reason many bitmaps that do not have mips on aircraft seem to "shimmer" a bit at the edges, especially in areas where there are high color contrasts (i.e. black writing on a white fuselage). This shimmering is where the video card is attempting to mip a bitmap that does not have a set of mips, thus making your video card work harder than it really should - this extra work could impact other things such as scenery texture loading time and even FPS in extreme cases. I know many times people experience the case of the "blurries" when using external textures with mipmaps. Usually, when you load an aircraft in either tower or spot view, the blurries happen. What has happened is the video card has not been able to properly pre-load all of the texture mips for each respective bitmap. By cycling through all of the views including the 2-d panel, this clears up as the video card is properly cached.Best regards,Owen

Owen, thank you for you extensive explanation!I already converted all of my textures to mipmapped ones. I noticed also that many of my aircraft, in the folder with the aircraft external textures also has some other textures, like VC and some other stuff.My question now is simple: do mipmaps decrease performance, both in external or for instance VC view?

I would avoid using mipmaps in a VC environment - the reason being is that the viewpoint of the user (you) is never sufficiently away from each texture to make the video card want to reduce resolution, i.e. go to another mipmap level (as there are generally 10 levels). It is also important to point out something that I have found to occur in the VC - when using any bitmaps with an *_T.bmp tag, you need to make sure to include an alpha layer - even if that alpha is blank. If not, then the texture may get the case of the blurries. Why this is, I'm not exactly sure, but adding an alpha layer does the trick every time!Side note:As I make GA aircraft most of the time, there is one instance where I avoid mipmaps in the external aircraft, and that is when I am texturing prop blur. Mipmaps don't generally work too well with those for some reason.Edit:After re-reading my reply, I realized that I didn't even answer your direct question: No, I don't think performance will be impacted by not using mipmaps in the VC versus the rest of the aircraft, per the explaination above. :)Best,Owen

Owen, thank you for your extensive reply.Now I only wonder why do many many painters and aircraft companies like PMDG and LevelD bring out liveries which do not contain mipmaps?So basically, I have to convert each and every livery.I don't know if it's me, but it doesn't make sense to me :-)