Release Process

DirectXTex texture processing library

https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=248926

Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation.

May 7, 2026

This package contains DirectXTex, a shared source library for reading and writing .DDS files, and performing various texture content processing operations including resizing, format conversion, mip-map generation, block compression for Direct3D runtime texture resources, and height-map to normal-map conversion. This library makes use of the Windows Image Component (WIC) APIs. It also includes .TGA and .HDR readers and writers since these image file formats are commonly used for texture content processing pipelines, but are not currently supported by a built-in WIC codec.

This code is designed to build with Visual Studio 2022, Visual Studio 2026, clang for Windows v12 or later, or MinGW. Use of the Windows 11 SDK (22000) or later is required for Visual Studio. It can also be built for Windows Subsystem for Linux using GCC 11 or later.

These components are designed to work without requiring any content from the legacy DirectX SDK. For details, see Where is the DirectX SDK?.

Directory Layout

• DirectXTex\

  • This contains the DirectXTex library. This includes a full-featured DDS reader and writer including legacy format conversions, a TGA reader and writer, a HDR reader and writer, a WIC-based bitmap reader and writer (BMP, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and HD Photo), and various texture processing functions. This is intended primarily for tool usage.

The majority of the header files here are intended for internal implementation of the library only (BC.h, BCDirectCompute.h, DDS.h, DirectXTexP.h, etc.). Only DirectXTex.h and DirectXTex.inl are meant as the 'public' header for the library.

• Auxiliary\

  • Contains optional source files for the DirectXTex library, such as adapter loading functions using the OpenEXR library, Xbox texture tiling extensions, etc.

• Common\

  • Contains shared source headers used by the DirectXTex library and tools.

• Texconv\

  • This DirectXTex sample is an implementation of the texconv command-line texture utility from the DirectX SDK utilizing DirectXTex rather than D3DX.

    It supports the same arguments as the Texture Conversion Tool Extended (texconvex.exe) legacy DirectX SDK utility. The primary differences are the -10 and -11 arguments are not applicable and the filter names (POINT, LINEAR, CUBIC, FANT or BOX, TRIANGLE, *_DITHER, *_DITHER_DIFFUSION). This also includes support for the JPEG XR (HD Photo) bitmap format.

• Texassemble\

  • This DirectXTex sample is a command-line utility for creating cubemaps, volume maps, or texture arrays from a set of individual input image files.

• Texdiag\

  • This DirectXTex sample is a command-line utility for analyzing image contents, primarily for debugging purposes.

• DDSView\

  • This DirectXTex sample is a simple Direct3D 11-based viewer for DDS files. For array textures or volume maps, the "<" and ">" keyboard keys will show different images contained in the DDS. The "1" through "0" keys can also be used to jump to a specific image index.

• DDSTextureLoader\

  • This contains a streamlined version of the legacy DirectX SDK sample DDSWithoutD3DX11 texture loading code for a simple light-weight runtime DDS loader. There are versions for Direct3D 9, Direct3D 11, and Direct3D 12. This performs no runtime pixel data conversions. This is ideal for runtime usage, and supports the full complement of Direct3D texture resources (1D, 2D, volume maps, cubemaps, mipmap levels, texture arrays, BC formats, etc.).

• ScreenGrab\

  • This contains texture writing modules for Direct3D 9, Direct3D 11, and Direct3D 12 primarily intended for creating screenshots. The images are written as a DDS or as an image file format using WIC.

• WICTextureLoader\

  • This contains a Direct3D 9, Direct3D 11 and Direct3D 12 2D texture loader that uses WIC to load a bitmap (BMP, JPEG, PNG, HD Photo, or other WIC supported file container), resize if needed based on the current feature level (or by explicit parameter), format convert to a DXGI_FORMAT if required, and then create a 2D texture. Note this does not support 1D textures, volume textures, cubemaps, or texture arrays. DDSTextureLoader is recommended for fully "precooked" textures for maximum performance and image quality, but this loader can be useful for creating simple 2D texture from standard image files at runtime.

DDSTextureLoader11, ScreenGrab11, and WICTextureLoader11 are 'stand-alone' versions of the same modules provided in the DirectX Tool Kit for DX11 DDSTextureLoader12, ScreenGrab12, and WICTextureLoader12 are 'stand-alone' versions of the same modules provided in the DirectX Tool Kit for DX12.

• build\

  • Contains miscellaneous build files and scripts.

• skills\

  • Contains published CoPilot skills for use by developers.

Documentation

Documentation is available on the GitHub wiki.

CoPilot Usage

For CoPilot CLI assistance with using DirectXTex, try:

winget install GitHub.Copilot
winget install GitHub.cli
gh skill install microsoft/directxtex
copilot
/skills list

Notices

All content and source code for this package are subject to the terms of the MIT License.

For the latest version of DirectXTex, bug reports, etc. please visit the project site on GitHub.

Release Notes

FOR SECURITY ADVISORIES, see GitHub.

For a full change history, see CHANGELOG.md.

• clang-format use for this project must match the version use by GitHub Super-Linter to pass the validation. VS 2022 and VS 2026 come with different versions, so to match use:

winget install --id=LLVM.LLVM --version 21.1.2
powershell -File build/Format.ps1 -LLVM

• The directxtex_desktop_win10 and directxtex_uwp NuGet packages are deprecated. The best way to integrate the latest DirectXTex into your C++ project is using vcpkg.

• The CMake projects require 3.21 or later.

• Starting with the October 2025 release, the Auxiliary functions for loading and saving JPEG and PNG files now take a flag parameter after the filename.

• Starting with the March 2025 release, Windows 7 and Windows 8.0 support has been retired.

• Starting with the July 2022 release, the bool forceSRGB parameter for the CreateTextureEx and CreateShaderResourceViewEx functions is now a CREATETEX_FLAGS typed enum bitmask flag parameter. This may have a breaking change impact to client code. Replace true with CREATETEX_FORCE_SRGB and false with CREATETEX_DEFAULT.

• Starting with the June 2020 release, this library makes use of typed enum bitmask flags per the recommendation of the C++ Standard section 17.5.2.1.3 Bitmask types. This is consistent with Direct3D 12's use of the DEFINE_ENUM_FLAG_OPERATORS macro. This may have breaking change impacts to client code:

  • You cannot pass the 0 literal as your flags value. Instead you must make use of the appropriate default enum value: CP_FLAGS_NONE, DDS_FLAGS_NONE, WIC_FLAGS_NONE, TEX_FR_ROTATE0, ``TEX_FIL