Speaking of compression, X-Plane doesn’t compress all textures…even if “texture compression” is on, we leave uncompressed certain textures that are flagged. A rough list:

  • Most textures in the sky, like clouds and color stripes, have a lot of alpha and get wrecked by compression. They get exempted.
  • Anything related to the 2-d panel, maps, and the UI get exempted.
  • Some of the overlays like rain and snow, smoke puffs, and lights.
  • Taxiway signs get exempted…S3TC does a number on letters and numbers.

About Ben Supnik

Ben is a software engineer who works on X-Plane; he spends most of his days drinking coffee and swearing at the computer -- sometimes at the same time.