Malarame
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 220
Registered: 02-04-2003
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Alright everyone, StuartK sent me a bunch of new and improved images to use on DROD.net. They're smaller in size, which should lead to better load times, mostly for those of you with dialup. I have a cable modem, so it's always gone really fast for me and there's no difference at all. I'd just like to ask everyone with dialup to go to DROD.net and tell me if there's any sort of noticable difference in the amount of time it takes to load the pages. The biggest changes were in the images used for the background. That's comprised of three seperate images, which before were each 96kb in size. The new images that StuartK sent me are 21kb, 43kb, and 11kb in size, which altogether add up to less than 96kb. I'd just like to know if the people here using dialup notice a difference. And, if so, would you like StuartK to continue to optimize the images used on DROD.net? Because I sure would.

____________________________
Matt O'Leary
Webb Institute
Class of 2007

"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception."
-Groucho Marx

eytanz
Level: Smitemaster

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The computer I'm using now is on a cable modem, but the provider is rather slow, and I definitely feel an improvement in the site's loading speed.

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I got my avatar back! Yay!

zex20913
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Yes, there is a much faster load time for everything except the nav. buttons. It is definitely noticeable.

Note--I only have dialup during the summertime.

____________________________

StuartK
Level: Smitemaster

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Registered: 06-10-2003
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zex20913 wrote:
Yes, there is a much faster load time for everything except the nav. buttons. It is definitely noticeable.

Note--I only have dialup during the summertime.

To get a real improvement for the nav buttons, it would be necessary to move over to png from gif. I can get the images just under 2kB each - they look alright to me, and they're about as small as I can make them before the buttons start losing image quality (to my eyes) They should be significantly more responsive for dialup users than the current 5-6kB for each image. The 3 images for a button highlight and 'press' total 15-18kB at the moment, or about 4-5 seconds download. If replaced this would be a total of 1-2 seconds, plus whatever network delays there are. Still not perfect, but then neither is dialup


An improvement here is depending on three things.

1) A decision being made on whether to use png or not. I've been reading up on compatibility, and the only issue I see being made large mention of is that IE does not support alpha blending at the moment. This wouldn't be an issue with any of the images I've been sending. Still, I'm not set up to test compatibility on a large range of browsers here...

2) Images replaced and html updated - the previous batch of files I sent Malarame were all gifs, so the update was a simpler procedure

3) Malarame finding time in his busy schedule


I've also sent some replacement screenshots, for the various incarnations of DROD, to replace the current gifs (again, pngs are significantly smaller) I haven't done any screenshots for the latest version of DROD3D yet. The ones on the website at the moment are out of date - from an older version than the current download.

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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StuartK wrote:
To get a real improvement for the nav buttons, it would be necessary to move over to png from gif.

I'm a fan of PNGs, but I'm worried about the browser support for them. My PNGs in IE5 open up in a QuickTime plug-in that always takes about 3 seconds to load. I don't think PNGs are supported natively in IE, which is what most people will have. I don't want to request people make changes to their browser in order to view the site. So what's the browser support out there for PNGs? Maybe my browser is uniquely screwed up.

-Erik


____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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So you get the QT plugin with the DROD Room image feature? Those are PNGs - when I tried outputting jpegs, they were a TON bigger than the PNG files.

____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

trick
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
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Registered: 04-12-2003
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Does that QuickTime thing happen with my avatar as well ? That's a PNG. If it doesn't, it's probably the pages that use a plugin for better PNG support, but if it does, it's probably related to a bug in IE that some experience (but not all). Look here for the fix: http://libpng.org/pub/png/pngfaq.html#msie

For the current status of PNG, look here: http://libpng.org/pub/png/pngstatus.html (see under browser support). Looks like only alpha transparency is a big problem in IE, and drod.net doesn't use that.

Oh, and here's a list of known supported browsers: http://libpng.org/pub/png/pngapbr.html

- Gerry


[Edited by trick on 07-24-2003 at 04:37 PM GMT: added link to supported browsers list]

ErikH2000
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trick wrote:
Does that QuickTime thing happen with my avatar as well ?

No, it doesn't for some reason. Schik's room image does. Maybe the plug in simply shows the QuickTime logo while the image is being downloaded and your avatar image is smaller or cached so there is no delay.

That's a PNG. If it doesn't, it's probably the pages that use a plugin for better PNG support, but if it does, it's probably related to a bug in IE that some experience (but not all). Look here for the fix: http://libpng.org/pub/png/pngfaq.html#msie

Okay thanks, but my point is that other people's browsers may not be correctly configured for PNGs, and we would be unreasonable to ask them to "fix" their browser. The real question for me is does IE support PNGs without adding in extra stuff?

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5383
Registered: 02-04-2003
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ErikH2000 wrote:
The real question for me is does IE support PNGs without adding in extra stuff?

IE 6 does - I don't know about earlier versions though.

Now that I look at the URL trick posted, it seems that IE 4 and up support PNGs, though with various bugs in each incarnation of IE.


[Edited by Schik on 07-24-2003 at 06:32 PM]

____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

trick
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
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ErikH2000 wrote:
Maybe the plug in simply shows the QuickTime logo while the image is being downloaded and your avatar image is smaller or cached so there is no delay.

Yeah, that could explain it - specially since the file is only 609 bytes. By the way, does the transparency (around the edges) work for you ?

Okay thanks, but my point is that other people's browsers may not be correctly configured for PNGs, and we would be unreasonable to ask them to "fix" their browser. The real question for me is does IE support PNGs without adding in extra stuff?

IE does support PNG initially, but as you have experienced yourself, it may get broken. People with a broken browser should probably get it fixed, but many aren't even aware of the problem before it leaps up and bites them defiantly in the foot. To support these people, you have two options: Either go with png and put a link on the site that explains how to fix IE if the pngs are missing, or simply don't use png.

I myself always use png over gif, mainly because it's a much better format, but also because i don't like the software patents gif use (which cause me to break the law whenever i save an image as gif in an open source program). I won't try to convince you to do the same, tho. Do what you feel is best.

ErikH2000
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If our webmaster wants to use PNGs, I'm okay with it. Just hold onto the GIFs in case we need to go back to them.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

StuartK
Level: Smitemaster

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Registered: 06-10-2003
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File: 2kbuttongifs.zip (96.3 KB)
Downloaded 53 times.
License: Other
From: Unspecified

I've tried again and pushed the colour reduction quite a bit further. After optimization, I've got the gifs under 100kB for all 43 (a little over 2kB each) At this point it seems there are diminishing returns for using png (the png equivalents total 90kB) I think these are OK visually, but someone else is going to have to confirm, because I think I've stared at them a little too much...

If these buttons are OK, it would just about reduce the choice to a philosophical (and legal ) one...



This still leaves the screenshots though, where there's still a real benefit from using the png format - files are less than half the size of their gif equivalents. For example, I redid the Webfoot screenshots (the originals were almost 200kB apiece) The new gifs total 270kB for 4 screens and 4 thumbs, but the png versions total 90kB - quite a difference. Similar results for the Caravel screenshots (though jpg was the best format for the title screen) For DROD3D, the current screens are from an older version, so I can't re-make them from the original source software. The best format for these is probably jpg (I have sent Malarame some jpg thumbnails which should load the current DROD3D thumbs page quite a bit faster)

But then the screenshots aren't going to be used as much...

Malarame
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 220
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Sorry about not responding sooner...I've been away for the past four days (college stuff).

Stuart, I got all of your emails and after glancing at the first one I decided that I need to wait until I'm not as tired. In a day or two I'll go through all of them. Until then, try not to send me any more big emails since my inbox is almost filled. I'll email you and tell you when you can send me more stuff. Thanks.

I don't really know about this entire .png thing. I've never even heard of it, but I'm willing to give it a shot. What I'm going to do is just put a couple .png files that Stuart sent me on their own pages and post the links here. That way, we could see who has a problem with them. I'll do all this after I read Stuart's email, which I think was just a little bit shorter than the Studant Handbook I was given to read

____________________________
Matt O'Leary
Webb Institute
Class of 2007

"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception."
-Groucho Marx