Quote Originally Posted by User137 View Post
Compressed image goes through algorithm when rendering, so raw texture data will always outperform it. But it's a good idea for some situations, i haven't heard of this concept before, or how to do it with OpenGL.
Not exactly, as the decoding is built-in into the hardware, and as they take way less space on memory, it usually rans faster (but might look worse visually).
About the texture looking white, maybe your card does not support it?
Here's a link about it:
http://www.opengl.org/wiki/NPOT_Texture