I believe that when you're dealing with a large # of texture maps, size of install/download becomes an issue, as textures with mipmaps are a bit larger than those that do not. It is ultimately up to the end user to really use them or not, so I suppose they do not want to force mipmaps onto those who still find them "offensive" when they are really there to make the video card's work easier!Even my work at DF won't have mipmaps upon public release, but that doesn't mean the external bitmaps will be without mips on my *own* machine. ;)Imagetool works wonders for fixing any bitmap - though it is best to have a 32-bit image before mipmapping, and then converting to DXT3.Best regards,Owen

>Now I only wonder why do many many painters and aircraft>companies like PMDG and LevelD bring out liveries which do not>contain mipmaps?Simple, because to most you get sharper textures with no mips and most are probably ignorant as to why there are mips in the first place (i.e. performance) I can thing of several high profile painters that even go so far as to advocate no mips for repaints. I do it myself at times simply because you get the blurries and no about of switching views will cure it, so it is kinda of a compromise.Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/mcdcvabanner.jpgCalVirAir International

Sure, they are sharper because the video card has nothing to fall back onto - FS, like many things, is full of compromises. Ultimately, the end-user does have the option of mipmaps or no mipmaps by conversion using imagetool. It's all about freedom of choice!Best,Owen

I do it myself at times simply because you get>the blurries and no about of switching views will cure it, so>it is kinda of a compromise.Do you find this to be blurry?http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/135539.jpg

Owen, I used imagetool to make me bmps with mipmaps and also 32bit. No DXT3. I find DXT3 too much degradating in quality... Possibly faster loading, less RAM, but hey, on my computer?...

No sir - I'd say that is a very nice looking screenshot! :)Best,Owen

Okay, I understand the concept of the MipMaps for the user aircraft. I've got the Posky B752 Cebu Pacific "City of Manila" repaint I need to test.I have to take your advice because you were the only one who could tell me how to fix my beloved C-114.I'm wondering how many of the "bugs" and problems are self inflicted because we don't like to load the user aircraft in the 2D panel view.But what about MipMaps for AI aircraft?Those seem to never work for me.

I can't say that I've seen a problem with mipmaps with AI aircraft, and all that I've ever seen use mipmaps. I would think that if blurries are seen on those, that cycling through the views would properly cache their respective textures on the video card as well, but for those that use add-on AI packages, such as Ultimate Traffic, I can imagine that the video card will quickly become consumed with loading all of the different textures for each aircraft. That's kind of a tough one - Experimentation is the only way I would suggest seeing what performance issues arise either way. I personally don't have any other AI aircraft aside from the defaults, so most of my thoughts are based on assumptions (and you all know what that can lead to ---) Best,Owen

For user aircraft, I usually convert most of the textures to DXT3. Beware though that some textures don't seem to work well as DXT3.When it comes to AI Aircraft textures, I've found that using DXT1 (same as DXT3 but no alpha) with mip maps is the best of both worlds. DXT1 doesn't seem to have the issue with blurries like DXT3 and mip maps definately help out with frame rates. Plus the textures are much smaller. If you decide to try DXT1, be sure to read this thread first because once you convert to DXT1, you can't convert back so make sure and back up everything first.http://www.flightsimmer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30225Matt