<p>Are there any reasons to use power of two textures (like 128x128 sized) if one targets modern mobile platforms (with OpenGL ES 3.0, Metal and/or Vulkan)?</p>

<p>With iOS the PVRTC only supports power of two textures that have equal width and height, but e.g. ETC2 and ASTC do not have limits like that. </p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-08-22T08:59:43.630Z
On iOS the requirement that PVRTC textures be square was  completely artificial software constraint. AFAIK all versions of the (PowerVR) HW supported *rectangular* power-of-two sizes. Some would even have handled non-power of 2. The latter is definitely exposed via PVRTC-II formats (on non IOS systems)

As for PO2, there *may* still be some advantages for cache-alignment. I'd have to think about it, but it may also help with the lower res MIP map levels.
Simon F
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-08-22T09:33:17.560Z
Also, PO2 textures make it easier to do Morton order, which is generally beneficial for texture mapping, although block-based/tiled storage can get much of the benefit ( See Jim Blinn's "The Truth About Texture Mapping" - unsure if there's a non-paywalled version)
Simon F
<texture><vulkan><opengl-es><metal>
Are there any reasons to use power of two textures with modern mobile platforms?
Kaarlo Räihä
# Are there any reasons to use power of two textures with modern mobile platforms?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2019-08-21)

Are there any reasons to use power of two textures (like 128x128 sized) if one targets modern mobile platforms (with OpenGL ES 3.0, Metal and/or Vulkan)?

With iOS the PVRTC only supports power of two textures that have equal width and height, but e.g. ETC2 and ASTC do not have limits like that.

**Tags:** texture, vulkan, opengl-es, metal

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: On iOS the requirement that PVRTC textures be square was  completely artificial software constraint. AFAIK all versions of the (PowerVR) HW supported *rectangular* power-of-two sizes. Some would even have handled non-power of 2. The latter is definitely exposed via PVRTC-II formats (on non IOS systems)  As for PO2, there *may* still be some advantages for cache-alignment. I'd have to think about it, but it may also help with the lower res MIP map levels.  
> **username_1**: Also, PO2 textures make it easier to do Morton order, which is generally beneficial for texture mapping, although block-based/tiled storage can get much of the benefit ( See Jim Blinn's "The Truth About Texture Mapping" - unsure if there's a non-paywalled version)  

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## 0 answers

