Compressed textures

Compressed textures use 4-8x less GPU memory than standard PNG/JPG textures and upload faster, especially on mobile devices or lower-end hardware. PixiJS supports multiple compressed texture formats, but you must register the appropriate loaders before using them.

Supported formats

Registering loaders

PixiJS does not include compressed texture support by default. Import the loaders you need before loading any assets:

import 'pixi.js/dds';
import 'pixi.js/ktx';
import 'pixi.js/ktx2';
import 'pixi.js/basis';

[!NOTE] You only need to import loaders for the formats you use. These imports must run before any call to Assets.load.

Using compressed textures

Once loaders are registered, load compressed textures like any other asset:

import 'pixi.js/ktx2';
import { Assets } from 'pixi.js';

await Assets.load('textures/background.ktx2');

PixiJS parses and uploads the texture using the correct loader and GPU-compatible transcoding path based on the user's device.

Integration with AssetPack

AssetPack supports automatic generation of compressed texture variants during your build step. You can:

• Convert .png or .jpg files into .basis, .ktx2, or .dds formats
• Reference compressed files in your manifest using the same aliases or wildcard patterns
• Use the same manifest and loading workflow; PixiJS resolves and loads the best variant based on the device

Example

Your manifest can include multiple format candidates:

{
  "bundles": [
    {
      "name": "scene",
      "assets": [
        {
          "alias": "bg",
          "src": ["assets/bg.ktx2", "assets/bg.basis", "assets/bg.png"]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

PixiJS tries to load bg.ktx2 or bg.basis first if the device supports it, falling back to bg.png as needed.