# Why not up the avatar and sig file size limit?



## notnarb (Jan 4, 2008)

When it comes to internet speed, there are 3 camps, dial up, broadband, and mobile.  Mobile users would most likely use gbatemp lite  or w/e, so they don't count.  Dial up users have around 4KB/s speed, so it would take them 10 seconds to load one avatar anyways, so they shouldn't count either 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





.  I am a broadband user, and living in the US, where it is typical for people to have slow broadband speed, but for only $25 a month I get ~333KB/s (yes a capital B 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




), so I'll just consider this a general minimum among 95% of broadband users. Now assuming I load a page where everyone has an avatar and sig totaling an average of 100KB a person, It'd take me 3 seconds to load a page, and thats assuming I have never seen anyone's avatar / sig before...  Aren't the current restrictions a _little_ silly for a website mainly used to help people manage their downloaded media?  I'm not saying we should eliminate the size limit, but merely reduce how much it limits an avatar / signature (and maybe just making it a flat total? ie 150KB avatar, 0KB sig).  IDK just my opinion


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## benchma®k (Jan 4, 2008)

Have to say i agree with you.. the actual dimentions of the sig is fine... i think most people can work something into 400x100 pixels. Getting the image size down to 50kb is a bit tricky though.. especially if you want to add a tiny bit of animation.

I couldnt comment on how big the file size should or could be. But i do think 50kb is a little *too* small.


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## Salamantis (Jan 4, 2008)

Agreed. Not sure about everyone's opinion but I'd sometimes like to have a sig that's over 50kb. And the dimensions are fine, oversized sigs are pointless.

Maybe even something like if you have 0-200 posts you get the regular file size, and every 200 posts or something you get larger.


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## Ace Gunman (Jan 4, 2008)

First of all, notnarb, _love_ the Rayne Summers avatar. More people should read Least I Could Do. And on the topic at hand, we're actually more lenient than you may think. 50kb may be the official limit, but many of the staff will let it slide if it's say... 57 or 60. We just don't want people going overboard with the sizes, because not everyone has a fast connection, and this place already slows down enough as it is for even those of us _with_ highspeed, on busy days.


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## jumpman17 (Jan 4, 2008)

The file sizes are fine. It's called optimization. And if we upped the limit, people would still go over and say "we need moar!" until everyone has 2 meg ava animations like other sites i go to and take a year and a half to load.


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## enarky (Jan 4, 2008)

How can you *not* fit a picture into 100x140/50 KByte? Ever heard of compression? And, TBH, people should keep the animation to myspace... most of the avatars are ugly enough as still frames already, I wouldn't want to have to look at them animated.


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## adgloride (Jan 4, 2008)

Why not Limit the number of guests on GBATemp that can access it at any one time.  I was on last night and it had 700 guests on and 350 actual members 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




  It was running really slow because of it as well.


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## jesterscourt (Jan 4, 2008)

Isn't it a bandwidth issue as well?


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## arctic_flame (Jan 4, 2008)

QUOTE(notnarb @ Jan 4 2008 said:


> A lot of arguing about speed.



The site is too slow as it is. The site uses too much bandwidth. The site can't cope with the influx of users. Huge sigs are stupid.


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## Jaejae (Jan 5, 2008)

I totally understand the bandwidth issue, but perhaps easy the limitations on off site files.
Yeah, if you are on a site where everyone pirates games which weigh in at an average of 64MB (stfu if the average isn't 64MB), a 100KB avatar really wouldn't make so much of a difference for off site ones.


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## OSW (Jan 5, 2008)

not everyone pirates games 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




thats a poor assumption.

an even poorer assumption is that all pirates download their games. perhaps they have friends who pass on the files via harddrives etc.

just to be nitpicky


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## Jaejae (Jan 5, 2008)

stfu.
The _majority_ of members download games.
Either way, larger off site avaters doesn't increase load on the servers, infact, it would probably reduce it, because people would be more inclined to have bigger avatars, which they could host off site.


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## Bourbanog (Jan 8, 2008)

No....

Massive animated avatars are annoying and just steal my bandwidth.

I live in Australia, we have high prices for some of the slowest speeds in the western world. 

I usually just Adblock annoying avatars anyway.


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## .TakaM (Jan 8, 2008)

I think GBAtemps limits are alright, some forums I go to have limits at 20kbs and they can just go get fucked 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




Plus GBAtemp is a busy place, I don't think it's fair to ask for a significant increase


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## phuzzz (Jan 8, 2008)

It's one thing to have one person have a larger avatar.  Maybe even two.  But when you have everyone on one page sporting a 100kb avatar, you notice it.


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## DarkAura (Jan 12, 2008)

25 kb and 50 kb is big enough.  You don't want everyone having huge avatars and huge sigs.  Plus, the limit makes GBAtemp look more... orderly and rule-abiding.


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