Why convert DDS to KTX2?
KTX2 is the preferred texture container for glTF 2.0 assets and what engines like Babylon.js, Three.js, and Godot 4 expect for hardware-compressed textures on the web. Moving textures from a DirectX-based pipeline to a cross-platform 3D engine makes .ktx2 the correct target over the Windows-centric DDS format.
How to convert DDS to KTX2
texconv + toktx FREE
Use texconv (DirectXTex) to decode the .dds to PNG, then encode the PNG to .ktx2 with toktx (KTX-Software); both tools also run on macOS and Linux.
GIMP OPEN-SOURCE
Open the .dds in GIMP to inspect or edit it, export to PNG, then pass the PNG to toktx for final KTX2 encoding.
About these formats
.DDS
DirectDraw Surface (DirectX texture image)
A DDS file is a DirectDraw Surface texture made by Microsoft for DirectX. Games like Skyrim, Fallout, and Source-engine titles store textures as DDS. To view one, use free XnView MP or…
Open .DDS details →A .KTX2 file is a data file used by specific software.
Open .KTX2 details →Quality & what to watch
- Re-encoding from one GPU-compressed format to another requires a decode step; use lossless PNG as the intermediate to avoid additional quality loss.
- toktx supports UASTC supercompression for higher quality and ETC1S for smaller files - choose based on your target hardware and engine requirements.
- Some versions of toktx accept DDS input directly and can wrap existing block-compressed data into KTX2 without re-encoding; check the toktx documentation for your release.
Frequently asked questions
Can I convert DDS to KTX2 without the command line?
Will I lose quality converting DDS to KTX2?
Are mipmaps preserved in the conversion?
--genmipmap flag.
