DirectDraw Surface

Direct Draw Surface (DDS ) is an established Microsoft file format (extension. Dds ) to optimize and storage of textures or cube map, which was first introduced in DirectX 7.0. Since version 8.0 also Volume Textures can be stored. For most formats also mipmaps are supported. The format is relatively compact and can with numerous programs (including the manufacturer Nvidia and Microsoft) are created. In addition, plug-ins for various graphics programs available (eg for GIMP and Adobe Photoshop) which allows them to export to the DDS format. With the expansion ARB texture compression format can also be used in OpenGL.

The DDS format was developed by Microsoft to increase the speed in games, without compromising on details. It is often used in computer games or benchmarks, as it can be quickly loaded into the graphics memory and because of the mipmaps provides a rapid display of 3D graphics.

DDS has furthermore the advantage of transparency, can DXT1 (version 1), for example, 1 bit ( 2 colors) alpha or transparency represent and DXT2 may already represent 4 bits, which is sufficient for games in many cases.

There are at DDS following formats (see S3 Texture Compression):

  • DXT1
  • DXT2
  • DXT3
  • DXT4
  • DXT5
  • Graphic format
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