BC7 mode 0 (3 subsets, 444.1 endpoints with a unique p-bit per endpoint, 3-bit indices, 16 partitions) is probably the most difficult mode to handle correctly. If you don't do the pbits right, the results look terrible (very banded). All BC7 encoder I've examined (from Intel, NVidia, Volition, and Microsoft) have weak mode 0 encoders (and most drop the ball with pbits).
To put things into perspective, mode 0 is better than BC1 by approximately 5-6 dB RGB PSNR on average, when done correctly. All-mode BC7 is 10-12 dB better on average than BC1 for opaque textures.
Here are some example mode-0 only encodings created with the ispc vectorized non-RDO BC7 encoder in Basis. Notice there's no visible banding (there shouldn't be in a properly written encoder).
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To put things into perspective, mode 0 is better than BC1 by approximately 5-6 dB RGB PSNR on average, when done correctly. All-mode BC7 is 10-12 dB better on average than BC1 for opaque textures.
Here are some example mode-0 only encodings created with the ispc vectorized non-RDO BC7 encoder in Basis. Notice there's no visible banding (there shouldn't be in a properly written encoder).
