internalFormat in glCompressedTexImage2D specifies format in texture or the format in OpenGL(GPU)?

1
votes

This is a little silly question but the link (http://www.opengl.org/sdk/docs/man/xhtml/glCompressedTexImage2D.xml) says it "Specifies the format of the compressed image data stored at address data." which means the actual compressed texture image format. That is what I thought.

Then why is it called "internal format"? Shouldnt it just be called Format?

Because Internal Format in glTexImage2D() means the format in which the image data is stored in GPU internally.

1
opengltextures

1 Answers

1
votes

The idea of compressed textures is, that the image data the GPU holds in and accesses from its memory is compressed to save space and – even more important – memory bandwidth. So it makes sense that the internal format defines which compression to use, if any.

So what exactly is your question?