I don't know, but we do have necks that pivot 360 degrees. I am not sure a mirror would do much better then a snap 6 OC view and would just eat up frame rate.
How did Air Warrior do it? There was no decrease in FR even in a thick furball when you used the rear view mirror, even in AW3D. If I remember correctly the mirror was in the Forward Up view, and took up at least half your screen if not more.
You guys have to understand the mechanics of how the "illusion" of "3D" is done in computers. A reflection in a mirror in the real world is just what it is - a 'reflection', nothing more. It is nothing more than a set of 'images', an optical phenomenon light creates. When you see a mirror it's not a separate world existing inside that mirror - it's not Alice's world in there.
However, in computers it is different. A set of images such as reflection on the surface of a mirror is literally a separate piece of 3D modelled in the game. When a computer depicts a mirror in the screen, it's like a whole new "world" created inside that mirror.
When you sit at your cockpit and look straight back, it's literally just looking back. The system doesn't need to depict a separate, identical, left/right reveresed version of the world behind your plane. However, when you have a mirror, the system must first create the world and the plane behind you (that is actually behind you), and then it has to make another set of the same thing exactly like it, left/right side reveresed, inside your mirror and make it look like a reflective image. The mirror of AW, is a work-around that is essentially nothing but a rear view, and is not an actual mirror.
In other words, if a reflective image is created inside a computer screen, it means everything is portrayed by the double - and that's counting if there's only one plane behind you. If you are being chased by 4 planes, then the system must make two sets of 4 planes, one set behind your actual plane model, and another miniature set depicted inside your mirror.
Now, imagine you are in a P-51 passing by an entire bomber wing with a hundred B-17s behind you - you get the picture. The better and more realistic the mirror is done, the more serious its hit on performance.
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If AH makes a separate, enlarged rear view mirror screen for use, then that's essentially on the same grounds of making a transparent view when you look back(remember European Air War?). It's like cheating. All the disadvantages of being in a plane with bad rear-view is neutralized. There's no way HT is going to have something like that inside this game.
Therefore, if AH ever sees a rear-view mirror in the game, then it is undoubtably going to be accessible only by looking forward-up, where there would be a mirror, it's actual size, actual location, actual shape. And in that mirror, would the "world" behind your plane be recreated, and when that happens, it is going to hit the system performance really really severely. There's no way around it if you want to see realistic mirrors, instead of some ridicukous full-screen "periscope" view.
So becareful for what you wish for.
