DDS File Documentation

Overview

Feature Value
File Format Type DirectDraw Surface (DDS)
MIME Type image/vnd.ms-dds
Developed by Microsoft
Primary Use Texture Files for Video Games and 3D applications
Compression Yes, supports both uncompressed and compressed (DXT1, DXT3, DXT5)
Color Depth 8-bit to 32-bit and floating point formats
Alpha Channel Support Yes
Mipmap Support Yes
Texture Cubemaps Yes
DirectX Version Introduced DirectX 7
Volume Textures Yes
Can Store Multiple Surfaces Yes
HDR Support Yes, through floating-point formats
Typical File Extensions .dds
Used in Platforms Windows, Xbox
API Support DirectX, OpenGL with extensions
Standard Proprietary
Editable in DirectXTex, GIMP (with plugin), Photoshop (with plugin)
Metadata Support Limited
Optimized for Fast loading and rendering of textures on graphics hardware