19 replies to this topic

[rcthelp]

Amazing how often this discussion crops up. My graphic format is bigger/better than yours!

A FACT though is that BMP is not a w3c standard for browsers so won't necessarily display. See http://en.wikipedia...._format_support which lists browser support for image formats. Because BMP is not adopted by w3c, it does not appear in that table. Therefore I would have to write code to convert the BMP upload to another format, probably PNG maybe JPG.

We could accept the bandwidth 'hit' of a large BMP upload, but I would convert it to something smaller for rendering in browsers.

[Of course one important thing about JPG is that it uses a 'lossy' compression algorithm, so that image quality is lost proportional to the amount of reduction in filesize you want. The algorithm is designed for photographic images with a large pallet of colours. GIF and PNG though use 'lossless' compression, so no quality is lost, but the pallet of colours used is limited. These formats are suited to images that have sharp transitions between colurs rather than the subtle changes in shades you find in photographics. As RCT 1 and 2 images use a small pallet anyway, and therefore big colour transitions between adjacent pixels, GIF and PNG are good formats to use.]

http://en.wikipedia....rison_with_JPEG for those who are interested...

RCT2 BMP files are always the same size (depending on the resolution you are running the game at). The game does not compress the BMP image in other words.

640*480 BMP = 308,238 bytes = 1 byte per pixel + 1,038 bytes
800*600 BMP = 481,038 bytes = 1 byte per pixel + 1,038 bytes
etc

Saving a 640*480 BMP as a PNG with maximum compression = (typically) 60,000 bytes with no loss in quality
Saving a 640*480 BMP as a JPG with 100% quality = 311,800 bytes, hardly any difference than the BMP, and often larger
Saving a 640*480 BMP as a JPG with a size equivalent to the PNG means reducing the quality to approximately 50%

Then of course if your RCT screenshot includes text, JPG mangles it badly.

Here's a couple of examples. A 640*480 RCT2 BMP image saved as a PNG then as a JPG with similar filesize.

 SCR4.png   58.48KB   59 downloads  SCR4.jpg   57.96KB   57 downloads

Program used to create the PNG and JPGs was Irfanview version 3.90 http://www.irfanview.com/

[Trainman 2000]

Wow. If you look closely, the png looks really bad. But it's hard to notice so

[rcthelp]

Wow. If you look closely, the png looks really bad. But it's hard to notice so

Actually it's the JPG that looks bad. There is no difference between the PNG and the BMP produced by RCT2. Apart from the fact that the PNG is 80% smaller.

[You MAY see a bad PNG if you have an old version of Internet Explorer.]

I will NOT be using GIF by the way. GIF support is not in the PHP version we use, due to licensing/patent issues. The compression algorithm is patented and licensed by Unisys who charge US$10,000 for a license. It used to be free for shareware like PHP, but that changed in 1999, and so support was removed.

[Trainman 2000]

Wow.
But I'm using Firefox. I think i just guessed wrong.

[**cjman**]

If you made uploading screens for rides easier, I would definitely post screens of my rides on the exchange from now on.

[Trainman 2000]

Yep, it's usually just so HARD...

[Wildman]

Here's an improvement that will work for all. I have noticed that there is a one track per hr limit. Let's open that since this is the only site that has such a limit and also there isn't that many people downloaded from the ride exchange. I would like to download at least 1,000 tracks from here but at this rate it will take me close to 4 months to do if I was to do 10 downloads per day. I know that I might make a few mad, but I mean no disrespect.

[rcthelp]

The main reason that we 'throttle' downloads to a limit is to make sure that the server does not get overloaded and/or we do not exceed our bandwidth limit. If either of those things happened, the site would be unavailable for extended periods, and/or it would cost more for the owners to run it, which they do out of their own pockets, with no charges to visitors and no annoying pop up/under ads to help with the costs.

It isn't a fixed limit either. For every new ride you upload, you get an extra download per hour. For every 10 posts you make that add value to the community, you get another download per hour.

I agree, if the popularity of the site was going down, then we could relax this limit. But since the site opened, almost without exception, every month the amount of data served to the community has gone up, and costs of running the site are nearly 10 times what they were when we first opened.

So while you think your improvement will work for all, it won't. Most of all, it won't work for the people who have to pay for the site.

[Wildman]

Ok, thanks.

[Wildman]

One of the reasons why I ask about raising the download limits is because I am trying to download around 1600 track files from you before my nephew in February. This is going to be a surpriser birthday gift to him.