Topic: Castlevania: Harmony Of Dissonance (GBA)

[JonLeung]

I just pointed out, though, that the person who informed me of that was able to view the full EarthBound Zero map, which is larger in image area but only a third in filesize.  They didn't say what browser they were using, maybe some browsers have a filesize limit?



I guess things like that are what led me to believe that .PNGs of repeated patterns are much smaller.  The EB0 map has many identical trees.  The smaller (but only in image area!) Harmony of Dissonance maps are much more complex and varied, which is why they're so much larger.  Am I right in that reasoning?  (Maybe I'll make a ginormous .PNG of only solid black or white and see how large it is in filesize, compared to a small non-repeating image of a larger palette.)



I love them, but it'd be a shame if, for whatever reason, they can't be viewed by everyone who wants to.



I wonder how much of a bandwidth-killer these will still be though...whoa.

[DarkWolf]

An image larger in area can certainly be smaller in file size than an image smaller in area, but as you said, more complex in patterns.  That's how compression works, you find repeating chunks of data and build a "dictionary" of these repeats.  So the more repeats, the smaller the file size.



But remember, you can't compress a file and expect the computer to understand that file later without reversing the process.  To reverse the process you need memory to temporarily hold the uncompressed data.



So on hard disk the file is smaller, but when you view it, it needs to be loaded into memory, and the space it takes in memory may be as big as the raw data that makes up the file.

[TerraEsperZ]

Also, the numbers of color can dramatically reduce the file size if under 256. While a 16.7 million color image requires 3 bytes per color (24 bits),  256 colors only require 1 byte (8 bit) and PNG compressor can even go lower than that for 16 colors (4 bits), 4 colors (2 bits) and probably 2 colors (1 bit). Just going from 24 bits to 8 bits can cut the size by three in addition to any further compression by the PNG algorithms.



...Or at least that's what I understand. DarkWolf can correct me if I'm wrong.



---

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

[JonLeung]

That's what I like about PNGGauntlet.  It can reduce palettes without (as far as I know) screwing up the colours that are used.  If I'm working on an image that's got 17 unique colours, I'll just replace the least-used colour with the closest one (don't worry, I don't do that on maps!) and run PNGGauntlet and bam, it's under 16 and also smaller.



Of course, maybe if I wasn't primarily using an extremely outdated version of Paint Shop Pro, I wouldn't need to worry about colours screwing up when I choose the palette colour bitdepth or whatever...I should probably take more time to learn The GIMP and PhotoShop so I can avoid such unnecessary pitfalls.



I'm pretty sure my outdated Paint Shop Pro would have trouble loading those massive .PNGs.