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Texturesbeginner7 min readupdated 11 Sept 2026

Mipmaps explained for FiveM texture artists

The short answer

Mipmaps are smaller versions of a texture stored in the same DDS. They cost one third more memory but make distant surfaces look stable, reduce GPU work and let the game stream a low-resolution version first. Always export DDS textures with a full mip chain (texconv -m 0, or “generate mip maps” in Paint.NET/GIMP).

A mipmap chain is a set of pre-shrunk copies of a texture: 1024, 512, 256, and so on down to a few pixels. The game uses the small copies when an object is far away. Textures without them shimmer, sparkle and stream badly — and some tools quietly drop them on export.

Mipmaps explained for FiveM texture artists — illustrated with a FiveM-compatible minimap render

#What the chain looks like

LevelSize (from 1024)Share of memory
01024 × 102475%
1512 × 51218.8%
2256 × 2564.7%
3128 × 1281.2%
4+64 … 4< 0.4%

The whole chain adds about one third to the base level, because each level is a quarter of the one before.

#Why they matter

  • No shimmer: without mips, a distant surface samples random texels each frame and sparkles.
  • Performance: small mips read less memory for far objects.
  • Streaming: the game can show a low mip first while the full texture loads.

#Generating mipmaps

texconv
texconv -f BC7_UNORM -m 0 -y -o out texture.png
  • Paint.NET: Save as DDS → tick “Generate Mip Maps”.
  • GIMP: Export as DDS → Mipmaps: “Generate mipmaps”.
  • CodeWalker/OpenIV importers keep the mips that are in the DDS — they do not add missing ones.

#Spotting missing mipmaps

Walk away from the weapon or prop: if fine details turn into noisy sparkles instead of softening, the mips are missing. In CodeWalker’s texture viewer, the mip count is shown per texture. Formats and sizes: DDS formats and texture resolution.

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Questions

Do FiveM textures need mipmaps?
Yes. Without them, textures shimmer at distance and stream less efficiently.
How much memory do mipmaps add?
About one third of the base texture.
How do I add mipmaps to a DDS?
Re-export from the source with mipmap generation on — for example texconv -m 0 or Paint.NET’s “Generate Mip Maps”.
Why does my texture sparkle when far away?
It most likely has no mipmaps.

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