What is a .DDS file?
DDS stores GPU-ready textures with mipmaps, widely used in games. Created by Microsoft.
- Did you know
- DDS is the texture format of choice for DirectX games.
- DDS was introduced by Microsoft with DirectX 7 to hold textures in S3TC block compression that GPUs can decode in hardware.
- A single DDS can store cube maps, volume textures and a full chain of pre-built mipmaps ready for rendering.
- What Analyser reads
- Decode and preview extra still-image formats in pure JavaScript - Truevision TGA, QOI, Netpbm (PPM/PGM/PBM), PCX, farbfeld, WBMP, XBM/XPM, Sun Raster and SGI are fully rendered - and read header metadata from codec-heavy formats: Radiance HDR, DirectDraw Surface (DDS) game textures, OpenEXR, JPEG 2000, JPEG XR, EPS/PostScript, Windows WMF/EMF metafiles, Apple ICNS icons, CUR/ANI cursors, MNG and Lottie animations.
- Depth of analysis
- .DDS is an identification-grade format: Analyser recognises it from its bytes and decodes the header metadata it carries, rather than opening it in a full viewer. Formats that do get a full viewer are marked "Full" on the formats page.
- Open a .DDS file
- Drag a .DDS file onto the Analyser home page (or tap to pick one). It is identified entirely in your browser - nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and it works offline once installed.