Liam White
Desktop GPUs should support ASTC texture formats

No, not even the HDR formats, though that would be nice. Just the SDR ("LDR") 8-bit formats.

The widely-supported DXTC formats can only offer a 4:1 compression ratio at best. Meanwhile, all mobile GPUs can natively decode these incredibly versatile compressed formats that offer up to a 12:1 ratio for massive VRAM savings. Even Intel supports most ASTC LDR in their mobile HD Graphics line of GPUs.

The continued refusal of desktop GPU vendors to support these formats is not motivated by patents (all major players have licensed decoders for the formats), and probably is not motivated by die space either.

As this tension drags on, game developers are forced to select suboptimal means to deliver their assets, as DXTC textures are not well-supported on mobile and ASTC textures are completely unsupported on desktop.