Like I said, individual files. 56k users would automatically start trying to multitask, and download the files, and not as a whole. When you have an image(take your current signature, for example) and it's downloading slowly, typically it'll download from top to bottom, or appear invisible until it has loaded.

If the files were in pieces, they would start downloading from top to bottom, as individual files. What this means is that a signature broken up into pieces will only be partially visible, and will appear malformed on a 56k user's page, until it's downloaded fully, resulting in it being much slower than a full image.

Now if the signature-in-pieces was downloaded and their IE didn't display the images until they're downloaded entirely, that would mean parts of the signature wouldn't display at once, as other parts are being concentrated on for download.

Example:

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/7992/16ht.png

It's all about multitasking for a slow modem.

Whereas, if you have a single image, your 56k connection is only concentrating on a single image, and therefor will download faster. This way is better, because your modem doesn't have to cope and deal with multiple images. And it'll look something along the lines of this:

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/6541/27fa.png

2 images still sounds fine. The miniature images of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, all being clickable just to rate you in your signature(which I bet half of the users with the intention of giving you a serious rating would never use) really isn't necessary, Eleo.

I still say, up the filesize but lower the dimensions.

Okay that's retarded for two reasons. One, if you saw the images broken up like that you'd smack your browser and F5 it until it got it right. Two, you're talking about 56k here. They have been dealing with a broadband internet world for years now. This is a yawn procedure for them by now.

Sorry Elixir, but Eleo is right. Having an image spliced into 4 partitions doesn't increase the load time by all that much because you're still downloading roughly the same amount of data. And if you're going to talk about the increased number of connections that have to be made, don't forget that there's pipelining.

Moreover your modem is constantly "multitasking" anyway -- there's more than fifteen images (not counting sigs and avatars) on a single GFF threadview page to be loaded. And we're disregarding the cache, too.

It is retarded, but that's how it works. I was on 56k for over 5 years, it was a painfully long road of torture but I got used to it. I learned and picked up on these things as thei nternet went along, while everyone else enjoyed DSL and then cable.

Bigblah, if you're going to support Eleo's "let's have 13 small pieces of shit in our sig" theory, do something about it and have the amount of images in signatures increased. Do something.

Edit: "Your file of 31.0 KB bytes exceeds the forum's limit of 30.0 KB for this filetype." Oh brother.

I'd have no problem with the limit. But I can't push the 24bit version of my sig below 83KB. The reason is caused by the fact that when I try to set an exact color for the outside (the part that blends in with GFF's background), it changes color. If there'd be any way to make this not happen when saving to Jpeg, I'll be very greatful.

Oh and if someone nice wants to do the above for me, you can find the image here. Just save it as a Jpeg @ 100% quality.

As for the dimensions, the width is alright at 550, but the height at 300 is really huge. If you want to reduce the size, I'm all for reducing the height. Maybe down to 200 or so.

I just did that, and it was a one-step process.
http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/6356/segasig9st.jpg

I even print-screened the preview, and there is no color difference between the image and the table background. And it is well within the new filesize limit.

It isn't hard, you know, but I use Paint Shop Pro, and it does have some different tweaks in saving files. I'm sure these tweaks exist in some form in Photoshop, though.

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/680...osig6137gl.jpg

This is when I saved it as JPEG on photoshop. I don't see any color difference here.

EDIT: Is there an obvious difference with this one?
http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/504...osig6137rz.jpg

One is saved from his sig, one is saved from the link.

I think he's just doing it wrong, really.

It is possible, with the correct wrong settings, to have it mess up the dark blue background, for whatever reason.

:itisamystery:

I didn't say I supported it. I only corrected you on the technical details.

Look, some guidelines here take precedence over others. We'll take action on the most obvious ones like filesize and dimensions, but for sigs that breach the image count with a total filesize below the limit, it's more probable that we'll let it slide. If we're going to be absolutely nazi about this rule then any sig with more than two smilies is technically in violation, since smilies ARE images as well.

It's frustrating enough to have to deal with the camp that complains about overly stringent policing, and the camp that makes journal entries when we don't enforce the rules to the letter. Maybe we should install one of those hacks that automatically do it for us. More than 2 [img] tags detected, 1 byte over the combined filesize limit, and vBulletin rejects your sig outright. Absolutely no leeway, and it's fair for everybody. Would anyone be satisfied with that?

I didn't know it was a theory :confused:

Also, "shit" is so condescending. That was one of the best signature images of all time! I prefer, "13 pieces of win and good".

Why not take away signatures altogethor? it's not like anyone cares or reads signatures other than their own.

Let's make avatars smaller too. 90% of posts on GFF don't even take up as much vertical space as the avatar of the poster.

It was about 50/50; at first many people agreed that the limit should be smaller, then it kind of shifted to a group of others saying that it's fine or should be even bigger because gosh, who doesn't have broadband nowadays! So, nothing really came of it in the end.

p.s. rate me 1 2 3 4 5

I have broadband and I still don't care to see 200kb animations in someone's sig no matter how amusing they're supposed to be.

If someone feels having a flailing anime character in their avatar is their only way for distinguishing themselves from other posters, they should work on coming up with a personality instead of more Photoshop.

^ What Q said.

Obviously the solution to our problems is to go and do what Raspberry Heaven does.

No sig restrictions, whatsoever.

A php random image script, grabbing a LARGE image of an anime character.

[said character] is a good [whatever this character is]

or

[series said character is in] fucking [rocks/blows ass]

And a few animated gifs of hilarity for good measure.

::gffs awesome rating goes up 50000000%::

Example:
http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/5...example8yx.jpg

Obviously this is the standard we should all follow. Go forth, spawn more people like OneGreatTurtle, Portable, hannable and shut!

And I suppose we could also just replace "anime" with whatever else. But you get the point.

I think that is an excellent idea and henceforth Serious Business Elitist Forums will have no sig restrictions whatsoever

(promise)

Elxir, I don't know what you're talking about with the donating money for increased sig sizes, since the people who wind up paying for the massive sigs is everyone download. Lots of people use imageshack and other sites to host their images, so it's not like there's tons of bandwidth that's being saved at GFF.

Also, I had remembered the image limit being placed long long ago to stop people from having shitloads of stupid looking pictures in their signatures. Personally, for a sig like eleo's where it combined to make one big one, that's fine. But I don't need 20 little unrelated 25x25 squares telling me about all of your interests.

Actually I use The GIMP for all my intensive painting needs. Of course it could be caused by my other photo program, Irfanview, which I use to convert PNGs to Jpegs. Usually the color ends up being 1-3 shades of blue off the current GFF background.

I think Sigs should be banned or accepted on an individual, stylistic basis. In other words, mods should have the power to remove sigs for being ugly and shit, fuck size restrictions.

That's very subjective. Explain more, Shin. Maybe with examples?

Well anything huge and badly thought out that does nothing but proclaim the name of some anime or a game should be got rid of. Sega's for example is garish, overly large and basically pointless.

I just don't personally see why people feel the need for huge pictures under their posts. I think it detracts from what a person is actually saying. Sigs are fine when they serve a purpose. If they're funny or tell you something about the user then they're fine but it's really not hard to do that without resorting to some fuck off great day-glo picture of some random anime chick or Cloud wanking over Tifa's tits (Actually, that'd make a pretty good sig).

It's just personal preference, mate and I realise I'm in a huge minority. I just dislike large, obnoxious pictures in signatures.

Basically I consider people with huge crap sigs the same as people with generic anime face avatars and don't bother reading their posts properly.

"Huge minority", oxymoron-tastic. XD

Why do I suddenly feel bad for having a big sig pic. Damn you Shin.

Well, personally, Shin, I think what's really wrong with www.sega.co.jp's ava/sig is that it's two completely different interests. It's fine when someone like Mush does that b/c he changes them a lot but sega always has this huge Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig sigpic which never matches his avatar. What the hell does metal sonic have to do with GitS SAC 2nd Gig? Nothing, that's what, and neither have any of the other avatars he's had (as far as I know). He's always had that damn sig with no matching GitS avatar.

Unless you're going to pull a Mush, have your ava/sig be around the same topic.


Also, Shin, you're biased against anime and so while I'd love it if it were easy enough for you to just right click on a huge anime sigpic and tell it to not display (unless there is a firefox plugin for that) there's not much we can do about that.

I watch anime often enough, and yet completely agree with Shin.

Also, since when do signatures and avatars have to match? If Sega The Awesome Username had some cyborg girl for avatar, it wouldn't make the sig any less pointless.