Perceived download time (was RE: [thelist] Really dumb question...)

[Greg Farries]

>> I was under the impression that slicing was still A Good
>> Thing (tm) even with XHTML/CSS2... two 10Kb graphics would
>> download twice as fast as one 10Kb graphic, no?

> Even if you mean two 10k vs. one 20k, not really. It takes the same
> amount of time for 20k to download no matter how you slice it. But
> the issue is not download time, it's *perceived* download time.

The whole point (in my mind) of slicing images up is to optimize certain
parts of the image. Reducing certain parts of your your images by several
KB's will increase the overall download speed of the entire image.  But
you're probably right, slicing an image up without optimizing sections of it
won't reduce the download time.  But what about the additional simultaneous
requests to the Web server.  Couldn't that possibly increase the download
time?

greg
urbangruv.com