DirectDraw Surface

The DirectDraw Surface container file format (uses the filename extension DDS), is a Microsoft format for storing data compressed with the proprietary S3 Texture Compression (S3TC) algorithm, which can be decompressed in hardware by GPUs. This makes the format useful for storing graphical textures and cubic environment maps as a data file, both compressed and uncompressed. The Microsoft Windows file extension for this data format is '.dds'.

History

This format was introduced with DirectX 7.0. In DirectX 8.0, support for volume textures was added. With Direct3D 10, the file format was extended to allow an array of textures to be included, as well as support for new Direct3D 10.x and 11 texture formats.

See also

References

External links

DDS

DDS may refer to:

Computer and information science

Electronics and communications

Chemistry

Digital Data Storage

Digital Data Storage (DDS) is a format for storing computer data derived from Digital Audio Tape (DAT).

DDS uses tape with a width of 3.81mm, with the exception of the latest formats, DAT 160 and DAT 320, which are 8mm wide. Initially, the tape was 60 meters (197 feet) or 90 meters (295 ft.) long. Advancements in materials technology have allowed the length to be increased significantly in successive versions. A DDS tape drive uses helical scanning for recording, the same process used by a video cassette recorder (VCR). If errors are present, the write heads rewrite the data.

Backward compatibility between newer drives and older tapes is not assured; for examples, see HP's DDS Media Compatibility Matrix. (Notice in HP's article that newer tape standards do not simply consist of longer tapes; with DDS2, for example, the track was narrower than with DDS1.)

The DDS format competes mainly against the LTO, AIT, VXA, and Travan formats.

Generations

DDS-1

Stores up to 1.3 GB uncompressed (2.6 GB compressed) on a 60 m cartridge, 2 GB uncompressed (4 GB compressed) on a 90 m cartridge.