DirectDraw Surface

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The Microsoft DirectDraw Surface (.dds) file format is used to store textures and cubic environment maps, both with and without mipmap levels. This format can store uncompressed and compressed pixel formats, and is the preferred file format for storing DXTn compressed data. This file format is supported by the Microsoft DirectX Texture tool (DXTex Tool), as well as some third party tools, and by the Direct3D extensions (D3DX) library.

[edit] History

This format was introduced with DirectX 7.0. In DirectX 8.0, support for volume textures was added. Though it was originally designed for DirectX, it can also be used in OpenGL as well via the ARB_texture_compression extension.

[edit] See also

• DirectX
• Direct3D
• DirectDraw

[edit] External links

• Microsoft's .dds developer site
• "Using Texture Compression in OpenGL" - NVIDIA document