# Better ASTC texture compression tooling and formats

**URL:** https://forum.castle-engine.io/t/better-astc-texture-compression-tooling-and-formats/478
**Category:** News
**Created:** [December 25, 2021, 6:05pm UTC](https://forum.castle-engine.io/t/better-astc-texture-compression-tooling-and-formats/478 "2021-12-25T18:05:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![michalis](https://forum.castle-engine.io/user_avatar/forum.castle-engine.io/michalis/32/3_2.png) [@michalis](https://forum.castle-engine.io/u/michalis)
#### Post date: [December 25, 2021, 6:05pm UTC](https://forum.castle-engine.io/t/better-astc-texture-compression-tooling-and-formats/478/1 "2021-12-25T18:05:03Z")

</div>

| [![ASTC compression variants, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_scalable_texture_compression](https://castle-engine.io/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Detail_of_ASTC_compressed_image-200x97.png)](https://castle-engine.io/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Detail_of_ASTC_compressed_image.png "ASTC compression variants, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive\_scalable\_texture\_compression") |

Thanks to _Eugene Loza_ we have an improved pipeline for compressing textures using ASTC (useful on modern Android and iOS versions). See [Auto-generated compressed and scaled textures](https://castle-engine.io/creating_data_auto_generated_textures.php) about GPU texture compression in general.

Now:

- We can use `astcenc` tool and the `.astc` file format it generates for ASTC textures.

See [PR #321](https://github.com/castle-engine/castle-engine/pull/321) for details.

- We even package the `astcenc` tool within the _Castle Game Engine_. We can, as it is open-source. It’s available in our [binary releases](https://castle-engine.io/) as well as [GitHub Repo (tools/contrib/)](https://github.com/castle-engine/castle-engine/tree/master/tools/contrib). So you don’t have to download/install anything to be able to compress textures using ASTC.

- Where to go from here? What more texture tools to “just bundle with CGE”? I started the [thread on our forum](https://forum.castle-engine.io/t/texture-compression-tools-integrate-in-cge). I think [bundling AMD Compressonator](https://gpuopen.com/compressonator/) with CGE is sensible.

_Please support the engine development on [our Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/castleengine). It funds development of the engine, it means we have resources to do the engine in the right way — that works efficiently and is easy to use._