I''m trying to get a sense about what mainstream graphics cards allow in storing textures in video memory. The OpenGL 1.3 spec for glTexImage2D allows many options for the internalformat parameter, but I don''t know whether to expect these to succeed on typical cards. I''m also not clear on whether the current screen display setting has any effect on this. Your experiences?

This page lists all the cards supporting the new formats. I don''t know about other vendors, but NVIDIA lists the pixel formats that provide the best performance (at least on the GeForce2 and older) in their OpenGL Performance FAQ.

Unless you go for some exotic format, most formats will work. the popular ones are GL_RGB5, GL_R5_G6_B5, GL_RGBA4, GL_RGB8, GL_RGBA8, and so on. The luminance, alpha, intensity formats also work well, just don''t expect the funky formats with odd bit distributions to work on everyone''s card. Also, don''t use 32bit textures when your screen is 16bit, or that''s just gonna give you more artifacts and is a waste of resources.

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- outRider -