KTX2

KTX2 is a Khronos Group file format and container for texture data. It is the successor to the KTX1 format and is designed to store one or more texture images along with mipmaps, array layers, and metadata in a portable, GPU-friendly form. The container supports 2D, 3D, cube map textures, and texture arrays, making it suitable for use in modern rendering engines and graphics APIs.

Key features include built-in support for a variety of compressed texture formats and the ability to store Basis Universal textures (UASTC) that can be transcoded to device-native formats at load time. This enables cross‑platform texture delivery where a single file can be used across different GPUs. KTX2 can also include a level of supercompression to reduce file size without altering the on‑device texture data after transcoding, improving download and storage efficiency.

The format is designed for integration with Vulkan and OpenGL pipelines and is supported by Khronos toolchains such as the libktx reference library. Engines and tools can read and write KTX2 textures through these libraries, enabling efficient texture streaming, mipmap handling, and format-agnostic asset pipelines. While KTX2 supports many compression schemes, real-time transcoding and hardware support vary by platform, so developers may choose specific target formats per project.

Use cases include delivering textures for games, interactive media, and web-based graphics, where reducing bandwidth and memory footprints is important. KTX2 provides a standard, extensible container that helps unify texture storage across APIs and devices. Files typically use the .ktx2 extension.