Arm Releases ASTC Encoder 4.0 With Even Faster Performance

When it comes to compressing textures using the Adaptive Scalable Texture Compression (ASTC) format that is supported by the OpenGL / OpenGL ES / Vulkan APIs, Arm's ASTC Encoder has long reigned supreme. Out today is ASTC-Encoder 4.0 as the latest performance-boosting update to this open-source compressor.

Arm's ASTC Encoder has long been one of the fastest encoders around (if not the clear-cut fastest already) and now with the version 4.0 release is even better. This morning's ASTC Encoder 4.0 release announcement sums it up as:

The 4.0.0 release introduces some major performance enhancements, and a number of larger changes to the heuristics used in the codec to find a more effective cost:quality trade off. The core compressor library is between 1.2x (4x4 blocks) and 1.6x (6x6 blocks) faster than the previous 3.7 release. The core decompressor library is 1.25x faster than the 3.7 release.

ASTC Encoder 4.0 has a number of additional optimizations as well as some command-line enhancements to astcenc.

Downloads and more details on ASTC Encoder 4.0 via GitHub. Up shortly I'll have more ASTC Encoder benchmarks.