What common texture compression, if any, is available on the Android platform?

Question

In simplest terms, I feel that these texture compression schemes should be available on all android devices, but I'm not sure about 2, and even then, I'm not so sure about 1.

1. compressed paletted texture
2. ETC1 (RGB 8 bit)

I can't seem to find the docs on this at developer.android.com. :(

If anyone just knows this info off the top of their head, I bet they'd be here at StackOverflow. :)

Answer 1

There is no common format, because of hardware variations. Supported texture formats depend upon the OEM.

Google I/O 2010 - Writing real-time games for Android redux, has a small section discussing texture compression.
At about 6:55 he talks about texture compression options.

• ATITC: Nexus One (Qualcomm), and most widely used atm
• PVRTC: Droid (PowerVR)
• ETC1: The emerging standard

Chris recommends ETC1, but also didn't compress his textures for the sample game.

Answer 2

ETC1 is API level 8+ (Android 2.2+) which is probably why its not being widely used at the moment. Just a matter of time...