For some reason when I load 32 bit TGA''s and then make OpenGL textures out of them it looks like they are truncated to 16bit images. But since the application is 32 bit and i have the mag/min filters set to linear, it creates a really stepped gradient with slightly fuzzy edges. here is the code to define the Opengl texture glPixelStorei(GL_UNPACK_ALIGNMENT,1); glGenTextures(1, &texName[0]); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, texName[0]); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_S, GL_CLAMP); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_T, GL_CLAMP); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, GL_RGBA, 256,256,0,GL_RGBA,GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, initial); note: initial is an 256x256x4 array of Unsigned Bytes why does it look so bad?