DDS Texture Example

For an uncompressed texture, use the DDSD_PITCH and DDPF_RGB flags; for a compressed texture, use the DDSD_LINEARSIZE and DDPF_FOURCC flags. For a mipmapped texture, use the DDSD_MIPMAPCOUNT, DDSCAPS_MIPMAP, and DDSCAPS_COMPLEX flags also as well as the mipmap count member. If mipmaps are generated, all levels down to 1-by-1 are usually written.

For a compressed texture, the size of each mipmap level image is typically one-fourth the size of the previous, with a minimum of 8 (DXT1) or 16 (DXT2-5) bytes (for square textures). Use the following formula to calculate the size of each level for a non-square texture:

max(1, ( (width + 3) / 4 ) ) x max(1, ( (height + 3) / 4 ) ) x 8(DXT1) or 16(DXT2-5)

This table lists the amount of space taken up by each layer for a 256-by-256 R8G8B8 texture, without using compression.

This table lists the amount of space taken up by each layer for the same texture using compression (DXT1).

This table lists the amount of space taken up by each layer for the same texture using a DXGI compression format (in this case BC3_UNORM) that therefore requires the extended header:

Related topics

Programming Guide for DDS