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Image MIME Reference
PTI

PTI Image (Personal/Vanity Tree)

image/prs.pti
VS

Truevision TGA (Legacy MIME Alias)

image/x-tga
TGA

A complete technical comparison of PTI Image (Personal/Vanity Tree) and Truevision TGA (Legacy MIME Alias) — covering compression, feature support, browser compatibility, magic bytes, and when to choose each format.

Equal browser support

Feature Support

Feature PTI TGA
Transparency (Alpha) ✕ No Yes
Animation Support ✕ No ✕ No
Progressive Loading ✕ No ✕ No
HDR Support ✕ No ✕ No
EXIF Metadata ✕ No ✕ No
ICC Color Profile ✕ No ✕ No
PTI Image (Personal/Vanity Tree)
image/prs.pti
Extension
.pti
Container Proprietary
Compression Unknown / Proprietary
Algorithm
Unknown
Color Depth Unknown
Developed by Jürn Laun
Released 1999
Magic Bytes
Unknown
Full PTI reference →
Truevision TGA (Legacy MIME Alias)
image/x-tga
Extension
.tga.icb.vda.vst
Container Truevision TGA Footer/Header
Compression Uncompressed / Run-Length Encoding (RLE)
Algorithm
NoneRLE
Color Depth 8-bit (Grayscale or Indexed), 16-bit (High Color), 24-bit (True Color), 32-bit (True Color with Alpha Channel)
Developed by Truevision Inc.
Released 1984
Magic Bytes
54 52 55 45 56 49 53 49 4F 4E 2D 58 46 49 4C 45 2E 00 (At the end of the file)
Full TGA reference →

Browser Support Comparison

Browser PTI TGA
Chrome Chrome
✕ ✕
Firefox Firefox
✕ ✕
Safari Safari
✕ ✕
Edge Edge
✕ ✕
IE IE (Legacy)
✕ ✕
PTI

PTI Strengths

  • Provided a registered MIME type namespace for a specific application's proprietary image format without conflicting with standard web types
Limitations
  • Completely undocumented and unsupported in modern ecosystems
  • Zero web browser compatibility
  • Falls into the 'vanity' tree, making it irrelevant for standard cross-platform data exchange
TGA

TGA Strengths

  • Incredibly simple byte layout allows developers to write custom loaders and exporters in a few dozen lines of code, bypassing the need for heavy external libraries
  • Native support for 8-bit alpha channels ensures flawless transparency masking for real-time 3D rendering
  • Fast, predictable RLE decoding requires almost no CPU overhead compared to DEFLATE (PNG) or DCT (JPEG)
Limitations
  • RLE compression is relatively weak by modern standards, resulting in large file sizes
  • Lacks a standard magic byte header at the beginning of the file, making file-sniffing unreliable for older v1.0 files
  • Zero support in web browsers; must be converted to PNG or WebP for web delivery

When to choose which format

PTI
Use PTI when…
  • Legacy Application Specific Workflows
  • Proprietary Image Storage
TGA
Use TGA when…
  • Video Game 3D Textures and Materials
  • 3D Rendering and Animation Sequences
  • Legacy Video Production Workflows

More comparisons

PTI vs ACES → TGA vs ACES → PTI vs APNG → TGA vs APNG → PTI vs AVCI → TGA vs AVCI → PTI vs AVCS → TGA vs AVCS → PTI vs AVIF → TGA vs AVIF → All comparisons →
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