Can we make the guideline for avatar dimensions 100x100 pixels? It seems to me like the file size limitation is all that is needed to preserve bandwidth, and maybe a limitation on space (for page formatting purposes) if someone manages a 20kb pic that's over 150px wide. It'd be nice to have unlimited file size for offfsite linked avatars too, since there are a few around here that already possess that capability (not to mention I have hundreds of nifty animated avatars that I can't use here ). What say you?

 

Rich,

I'll check if we can put that into our upgrade. I'm going to say 'nee' on the unlimited linked avatars. We still have dialup users on our forums (including me sometimes) and its not fair to make them turn off avatars because we want to have a couple of multimedia rockstar avatars

 

^^^ So how's that 100x100 coming along?

 

Right there along with the upgrade

It's in the requirements doc

 

Currently all pictures are stored in the database. This puts heavy load on the server when serving serveral thousand images per minute. With the upgrade, we should be able to move those pictures out of the database and into a regular directory. This will put allot less strain on the server.

Example:
An associate of mine runs cartoon server. He is able to sustain a 26Mbit/s connect to his subscribers. This is running off of a p4 2.0ghz server. The cpu load gets around 40%

In comparison, he also runs a phpbb forums board. The board sustatins a 3Mbit/s stream. The server is a dual Xenon 2.8 ghz with 2gigs of ram. The cpu load is 100% and the memory is completly saturated.

You can see why we are waiting for the upgrade to allow larger avatars.