DDS to AVIF Converter

Encoding: the DDS uses block compression (BC1 to BC7, also called DXT) or uncompressed RGBA; AVIF uses lossy or lossless AV1 intra-frame coding, and the download is an AVIF encoded with libavif (AV1) compiled to WebAssembly, at the quality you choose.

Bit depth: 8 bits per channel for common texture formats in the DDS; AVIF allows 8, 10 or 12 bits per channel, and the AVIF written here has 8 bits per channel.

Colour: RGB(A); normal maps and packed masks store data rather than colour in the DDS; AVIF supports YUV 4:4:4 or 4:2:0 with BT.709, Display P3 or BT.2020 primaries, HDR curves possible, written here as 8-bit sRGB.

Transparency: the DDS stores it as alpha inside the compressed blocks (BC2, BC3, BC7) or a 1-bit cut-out (BC1); the AVIF keeps it as an auxiliary AV1 image stored beside the colour image.

Other images: the DDS can hold mipmaps, cubemap faces or texture arrays; only the main image is converted.

Metadata: the DDS can carry a 128-byte header (plus a DX10 header) describing the pixel format, nothing about the picture; AVIF can carry EXIF, XMP and ICC stored as HEIF items, but nothing is copied across.

DDS is a GPU texture format used by DirectX games. It stores block-compressed textures (DXT/BC) and mipmaps that graphics cards decode directly.

A DDS file starts with 'DDS ' and a 124-byte header giving the size, mipmap count and pixel format: a FourCC such as DXT1 or DXT5, or 'DX10' followed by an extra header naming a DXGI format. The largest mipmap comes first.

DDS files usually come from DirectX games, game mods and texture tools such as NVIDIA Texture Tools and Intel's texture plugin.

AVIF uses the AV1 video codec for still images. It is the most efficient widely supported format, often half the size of JPEG, with HDR, wide colour and transparency, but encoding is slow.

An AVIF is a HEIF file, the same ISO base media boxes as MP4, with the brand 'avif'. The picture is an AV1 key frame stored as an image item, and its size, colour and pixel layout are item properties.

AVIF is the better choice for maximum compression on modern websites, while DDS suits game textures and mods.

AVIF strengths: Often 50% smaller than JPEG; Excellent at low quality settings; Transparency, HDR and 10/12-bit colour. Drawbacks to weigh: Slow to encode, especially on phones; Not supported by some older software; Can smooth away fine texture at low quality.