"Pilotwings" on the SNES makes use of the power of the 16-bit console, principally its Mode 7 capability. Similarly, "Pilotwings 64" prominently demonstrates the graphical features of its own console. Gatchel suggested that just as design elements present in the game generated its production requirements, these same elements were influenced by the Nintendo 64's technology during development. The large islands within the game were created using Paradigm's own 3D development tool Vega UltraVision. Navigation of these environments is relatively smooth thanks to "Pilotwings 64" taking advantage of several key Nintendo 64 hardware features. Conventional level of detail and mipmapping were used to reduce the computational load of distant landscape objects and terrains when they were rendered. The processes respectively substitute simpler geometrical shapes for more complex ones and less detailed textures for more detailed ones, lowering the polygon count and 3D rendering time for a given frame and thus putting less demand on the geometric engine. "Pilotwings 64" also applies z-buffering, which keeps track of an object's depth and tells the graphics processor which portions of the object to render and which to hide. This, along with texture filtering and anti-aliasing, makes the object appear solid and smooth along its edges rather than pixelated.