[Forum] Does number of smilies affect site performance?

[temp 4]

my forum has over 800 smilies and i'm starting to wonder if having a huge smilie catalog affects site performance...

[captainslater]

It is affecting your performance. Smilies will be loaded on page view regardless of browser caching options - 800 smilies are a huge amount.

[temp 4]

so it affects performance even if they are not being used? even if they are not being posted? even when they're just part of the smilie catalog?

[temp 4]

i'd like to know how it works exactly

[beishe8]

One page one smiley: Your browser downloads it and stores is temporarily.
One page one smiley repeatedly: Your browser does not download it it again,it shows the already stored smiley.
One page 100 smiley:your browser has to download and store 100 images.
Your user wants to choose a smiley from the 800: the browser has to download and store all 800 of them temporarily.

[temp 4]

One page one smiley: Your browser downloads it and stores is temporarily.
One page one smiley repeatedly: Your browser does not download it it again,it shows the already stored smiley.
One page 100 smiley:your browser has to download and store 100 images.
Your user wants to choose a smiley from the 800: the browser has to download and store all 800 of them temporarily.

ok i see. so it's only if a user wants to use smilies and open the selection window is when it taxes the MySQL database, huh?

just want to make sure before i start deleting stuff