Hi guys!
Not really a problem, just a quick question. 
When you load a texture (for example a JPG) on to the d3dDevice via CreateTextureFromFile() or similar, is the texture decompressed by the API and then sent to the video card, or is the image decompressed on the video card itself?
Thanks in advance 
The texture is completely decompressed by the API, unless the file is a special compression format that can be decompressed by the GPU. Those formats are the various DXT or BC formats that are stored inside DDS files. Common compression formats (PNG, JPEG, TGA, etc) are API-decompressed.
Ah ok, got ya :)
Are any of the GPU formats reasonable quality or even lossless?
They're all lossy. They are commonly used and of reasonable quality depending on your scenario. They offer not just a win in terms of memory usage, but also potentially performance (it's less data for the GPU to read into the texture cache).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S3_Texture_Compression
http://www.reedbeta.com/blog/2012/02/12/understanding-bcn-texture-compression-formats/
