FiveM-MiniMaps
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FiveM minimap resolution, compression and why maps look soft

Two minimaps can be the same resolution, the same file size and the same format, and one of them looks crisp in game while the other looks like a photograph of a map. The difference is never one setting. This is the page for people who want to know what those settings are — whether they buy anything here or build their own.

Our picks

What we would run on this kind of server

Three concrete recommendations rather than a shrug — with the reason attached.

Mixed dark TOPO NIGHT FiveM minimap for GTA V — google style — showing Los Santos street detailMixed dark TOPO NIGHT FiveM minimap for GTA V — google style — showing the whole San Andreas map Google style
Mixed darkTOPO NIGHT

The most detailed map here, and the best test of a sharp pipeline.

6144 × 9216 px · 78 files · google style
$8.00+ $1 / elementView
White ALABASTER FiveM minimap for GTA V — with postal codes — showing Los Santos street detailWhite ALABASTER FiveM minimap for GTA V — with postal codes — showing the whole San Andreas map Postal codes
WhiteALABASTER

Fine type over light ground — where softness shows first.

6144 × 9216 px · 78 files · with postal codes
$8.00+ $1 / elementView
Black OBSIDIAN FiveM minimap for GTA V — without postal codes — showing Los Santos street detailBlack OBSIDIAN FiveM minimap for GTA V — without postal codes — showing the whole San Andreas map No postals
BlackOBSIDIAN

Large flat areas, where compression banding shows first.

6144 × 9216 px · 78 files · without postal codes
$8.00+ $1 / elementView

The tile grid

GTA V streams the minimap as six tiles in a two-by-three grid. At 3072 pixels a tile that is 6144 by 9216 for the whole of San Andreas, which is what the maps here are rendered at. It is also the number to check on anything you download: a pack advertised as 8K that is upscaled to reach it will look worse than a native 6144-wide one.

Supersampling, and why upscaling is not the same thing

These maps are rendered at twice the final resolution and then reduced. Every edge — a coastline, a road stroke, a letter — is averaged from four times as many samples as it needs, which is why type stays clean and the coast does not stair-step. Upscaling does the opposite: it invents pixels from ones that were never there, and no amount of sharpening puts the detail back.

  • 2x supersample, then a Lanczos reduction
  • Type rendered as part of the map, not pasted on afterwards
  • Road casing drawn at full resolution so it survives the reduction

Compression and mip chains

The textures are block compressed, which means every four-by-four group of pixels shares two colour endpoints. That is kind to flat colour and cruel to foliage, which is the technical reason drawn maps out-sharpen photographic ones at the same size.

A mip chain matters just as much and gets left out constantly. Without smaller pre-made versions of the texture, the GPU samples a 3072-pixel image into a small rotating circle with nothing to fall back on, and the radar shimmers and smears the moment the player moves. With one, it is smooth and costs about two megabytes a tile.

Page size, and the resource that will not boot

The engine allocates each texture dictionary in pages, and a badly built one can ask for a page many times larger than the data it holds — a mipped BC7 4096-pixel tile is the classic way to produce a 128 MB page out of 23 MB of texture. Servers that refuse to boot after a map install are usually hitting exactly this. Everything here is built and then checked against that limit before it ships.

Questions

What resolution is the FiveM minimap?
Six tiles of 3072 by 3072, which is 6144 by 9216 for the whole map. That is what the game streams, and anything larger has to be reduced to it.
Why does my minimap shimmer when I drive?
Almost certainly a missing mip chain. Without one the GPU has no smaller version to sample when the radar zooms out, so fine detail aliases in motion.
Is a bigger file always a sharper map?
No. Format, mip levels and whether the art was upscaled all matter more than megabytes. An upscaled 40 MB map looks worse than a native 22 MB one.
Why did my server stop booting after installing a map?
Usually page size: a texture dictionary that asks the engine for a page far larger than its data. It is a build problem in the pack, not something you can configure away.

Not sure yet?

Open the live preview and look at any street on any theme before you spend a cent.