Bmps

[Thinkto urself]

Why doesn't the forum support the most basic type of image format, Bmps? Like when I wanna post a screeny, I always have to save the screeny over from bmp. to png. Why doesn't the forum support it?

[FliesLikeABrick]

it doesn't support it because it appears to have been left out of the allowed formats list by accident.  You really should convert it to jpg or png anyway since it is a smaller file and it'll take less time for you to upload it to the forums.

edit: I've added bmp as an allowed format, though I don't recommend using it.

[chrisgbk]

Really, really shouldn't use BMP, it's the worst format for the internet.

[blackdevil0742]

Why doesn't the forum support the most basic type of image format, Bmps? Like when I wanna post a screeny, I always have to save the screeny over from bmp. to png. Why doesn't the forum support it?

You do realize that bmp format can take ages to load? PNG, GIF and JPG is the best choice.

[Zero72]

Yeah, MS Paint can save a PNG, so there's hardly an excuse not to use that instead of BMP. Maybe BMP could be allowed within really tight size restrictions -- that might be useful for posting items from mods, actually.

[Serial K!ller]

use png's same quality but less size

[a-4-year-old]

Why doesn't the forum support the most basic type of image format, Bmps? Like when I wanna post a screeny, I always have to save the screeny over from bmp. to png. Why doesn't the forum support it?

You do realize that bmp format can take ages to load? PNG, GIF and JPG is the best choice.

Bitmap is faster since it isn't really compressed at all, it just displays the pixels without reading them or whatever.

So I hear...

[ElephantHunter]

Decompression speed of JPGs and PNGs is negligible with modern computers. Much more time is taken downloading a BMP.

Flies and I talked about this today. BMPs weren't disabled by accident. They aren't suitable for the web and damage the experience for everyone. Maybe someday we'll implement an automatic conversion utility into the image uploader.

[chrisgbk]

Decompression speed of JPGs and PNGs is negligible with modern computers. Much more time is taken downloading a BMP.

Flies and I talked about this today. BMPs weren't disabled by accident. They aren't suitable for the web and damage the experience for everyone. Maybe someday we'll implement an automatic conversion utility into the image uploader.

Precisely; I just compressed a random screenshot, and JPG got it down to 12K, and PNG to 52K. From a 900K source file. A 900K file would be murder to our 56K dialup members.

[bja888]

Why doesn't the forum support the most basic type of image format, Bmps? Like when I wanna post a screeny, I always have to save the screeny over from bmp. to png. Why doesn't the forum support it?

You do realize that bmp format can take ages to load? PNG, GIF and JPG is the best choice.

Bitmap is faster since it isn't really compressed at all, it just displays the pixels without reading them or whatever.

So I hear...

Probably.

Decompression speed of JPGs and PNGs is negligible with modern computers. Much more time is taken downloading a BMP.

It will make a diff if your doing it 50,000 times.

But the 2nd half has got to be true. Any time gained in rendering will be lost in downloading plus some.

[Thinkto urself]

Now I just don't understand your tech talk.

[a-4-year-old]

Now I just don't understand your tech talk.

Bitmaps render quicker than say, a Gif file because a gif file is a complicated compression that utilizes frames and other information that needs to be stored, bmps are just a collection of pixels.

[FliesLikeABrick]

bmp is going to stay enabled due to the usefulness it has in the mapping and modding forums.  It should have always been enabled because of that.

Screenshots and other purposes that don't explicitly need BMP should always use png or jpeg.