ATI compressed texture formats & auto-compression

[Keith Whitwell]

> 
> GL_ARB_texture_compression is supported... So why don't I get a value besides 
> 0 when getting GL_NUM_COMPRESSED_TEXTURE_FORMATS_ARB? Or am I looking in the 
> wrong place and the open driver doesn't actually support any compressed 
> textures?
> 

This is all about the unclear state of S3's texture compression patents as they apply to open-source GL implementations.  

In particular it's not clear if an opensource driver for ATI (or other)hardware can legally compress/decompress the S3TC textures - I tend tobelieve that this is somehow already covered by agreements the hardwarevendor would have with the patent holder, but like I said it's anunclear situation & people tend to be conservative in those cases.

To get this working locally, there's some sort of library you can download & plug in yourself though...

Keith