General question, why 20 kb sig size max?

snowdog

snowdog

snowdog

Soldato
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Although I know I have nothing to say about the rules, I'm just woundering, why the 20 kb limit, everyone I know these days has broadband, and with end of year, the 56k network will be shut down, wich will (at least here in the NL) mean there will be no slow internet at all, kept for slow internet I can't think of any reason why the size should be 20 kb max, the images must be hosted offsite anyhow so it's not taking the ocuk bandwith anyway :confused: .


Size is also something I was woundering about, 400x75 is a tiny bit on the average resolution of 1280x1024 people use these days...

Not trying to fight the rules, just would like to know why these limits are set?
 
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If a limit wasn't set, people would abuse it and have signatures which were massive. The smaller dimensions and file sizes provide a much cleaner and less cluttered look.

The signatures used to be quite big a few years ago before a rule was introduced. It looked crap.

Besides, you don't need any more than 20Kb or 400x75.
 
its not just one pic, its lot and lots per page.

ocuk is paid for by Spie, he pays the additional bandwidth should sigs be bigger.
be happy this forum is free from ads (eg google ads) :]
 
i think its more to do with bandwidth used on the server than slowing us down and good hosting with high bandwidth is not cheap also i like the realtivly small sig dimensions stops me just getting a thread full of sigs
 
Unless the signatures are actually hosted on the same server as the forum, then the sizes wont make a difference to the bandwidth usage..
 
Mohinder said:
Because if there was no limit you'd always get some numpty with a 2meg .bmp as his sig... keep it low, then people will pay more attention to their sig sizes.
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Think I could condense the entire Star Wars saga into .gif files in widescreen format that fits between 400 x 75 :p
 
Sigs aren't hosted on the ocuk server though so surely it has no effect on the bandwidth used? (edit: beaten by DunK1)
 
all sigs are hosted externally, has no effect on spies bandwidth bill. Broadband or not, the smaller the images the better. When you have 30 per page thats still 600kb, which is a few seconds on the average broadband connection taking into account *** multiple connections to numerous servers. any bigger and it would be a slow loading mess.
 
snowdog said:
Size is also something I was woundering about, 400x75 is a tiny bit on the average resolution of 1280x1024 people use these days...
Click to expand...


I think you'll find the average resolution is a long way from hitting 1280x1024 just yet, try 800x600 still, 1024x768 at a push.
 
DunK1 said:
Unless the signatures are actually hosted on the same server as the forum, then the sizes wont make a difference to the bandwidth usage..
Click to expand...

bloody good point that.
 
It doesnt have an affect on their bandwidth, but if you've been to other forums you have numpties that have a huge 800px long image and what appears to be a small countries IT related products listed below it.

I like it as it is, its less cluttered and you can still be creative as shown by a lot of people on here with sigs.
 
Morba said:
its not just one pic, its lot and lots per page.

ocuk is paid for by Spie, he pays the additional bandwidth should sigs be bigger.
be happy this forum is free from ads (eg google ads) :]
Click to expand...


Spie doesn't pay for the sig's bandwith, well ok perhaps for the BBcode, but not for the pictures, they are hosted offsite: a 1 mb file wouldn't make the tiniest difference to forums bandwith than a 20 kb file.
I agree there sohuld be a limit, but was woudnering why 400x75 and 20 kb, when I made my 1st sig (yes i know I have nothing to do lol) I was struggling to get it all into 20 kb and 400x75, as a result, i was using 400x80 for half a year before admins noticed it (lol).

But if lets say someone wants his spec in a 400x75 sig, the font has to be awfully small, if it'd be 500x100 or something it'd already be a massive improvement imo.
I agree forums now look nice and clean on ocuk, but i doubt i'd notice it if sig's were just a bit wider, as long as they don't take up half the screen :p .


divine_madness said:
I think you'll find the average resolution is a long way from hitting 1280x1024 just yet, try 800x600 still, 1024x768 at a push.
Click to expand...

1024x768 IS the average resoultion atm, and it's goign to 1280 due to many people getting a tft these days...

Clarkey said:
all sigs are hosted externally, has no effect on spies bandwidth bill. Broadband or not, the smaller the images the better. When you have 30 per page thats still 600kb, which is a few seconds on the average broadband connection taking into account *** multiple connections to numerous servers. any bigger and it would be a slow loading mess.
Click to expand...

I have 80 posts per page in settings, yet I never noticed sigs still loading, the sig's load way faster than it takes to read the 1st post, besides, who says there have to be 30 people in a thread, most of the time it's just 5 or so people having a discussion spread over a lot of posts ( most of the time, not always...)

Scuzi said:
Besides, you don't need any more than 20Kb or 400x75.
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I did, see above this post, you didn't even notice it for half a year i was using 400x80 :P.
Was very hard for me to make an ok-ish sig @ 400x75.
 
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divine_madness said:
I think you'll find the average resolution is a long way from hitting 1280x1024 just yet, try 800x600 still, 1024x768 at a push.
Click to expand...
rubbish, 1024x768 is the most common by a long way, 800x600 is a very small minority of users. This is a computer enthusiasts forum though, i'd be willing to say virtually nobody on here is running less than 1280x1024.

perfectly big enough size as it is, nobody honestly gives a flying one about your spec anyway.
 
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snowdog said:
I did, see above this post, you didn't even notice it for half a year i was using 400x80 :P.
Was very hard for me to make an ok-ish sig @ 400x75.
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In that case, you suck at Photoshop. 5 pixels isn't the end of the world;)

The rule stays.
 
Scuzi said:
In that case, you suck at Photoshop. 5 pixels isn't the end of the world;)

The rule stays.
Click to expand...

I do, infact someone else made my sig that time and now also, because I just suck in photoshop, although i have cs2 installed, i didnt launch it more as once or twice :p, cos I just can't make anything to it, paint was hard enough to learn, lol .
 
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