Load image used by Applet: To Sprite or Not To Sprite?

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

Hey guys,

I have a question about performance of loading images through Internet used by Applet. From my performance optimization experiences with Web Pages I know that sometimes to take advantage of slow TCP connection establishment it’s better to combine small image (<5KB) to Image Sprites. Does this rule also applies to Applets? This is because I’m hitting around 4-5 MBytes of GFX(not a lot, but the images are quite small, most of them 7-10KBytes and from loading performance number of images can make difference). So should I combine them to Sprites and cut when game loading is being made? What size of sprites you recommend?

P.S(I was also thinking in using SmashIt to reduce the size of PNGs I use in my game and I thinks this might be also a good idea)

Thanks in advance.

#2

if you have lots of small images you should just stick them all in a jar, instead of downloading them individually.

#3

Good point, thanks!