IE slows down animated GIFs with more than 6-8 FPS. Is there a fix or a cross-browser alternative (except flash)?
animated-gif, animation, gif, internet-explorer, javascript
Solution
This is an old problem relating to how browsers implement small GIF file animation delays.
There is a better article about it here http://humpy77.deviantart.com/journal/Frame-Delay-Times-for-Animated-GIFs-240992090
A summary of that article is that: Don't use delays of 0-1 (hundredths of a second), avoid 2-5 if you like IE users. 0.06 seconds is the first cross-browser safe delay.
Alternatives include Flash, SVG, Canvas and the slightly more complicated but more cross-platform compatible method of sending a different gif based on the user agent.
This behaviour has also been changed in IE10, it will now display GIF's up to 50FPS (2 hundredths of a second) I believe this brings it up to line with other browsers.
Problem
Honestly, until now I never noticed, but IE actually slows animated GIFs with more than 6-8 FPS (12-16ms/frame) down. For example, open this GIF in IE and in Chrome - you will see the difference: http://netanimations.net/Moving-picture-winged-dragon-animated-gif.gif My question is: Is there a way to fix this, let's say with a javascript? Or is there an alternative that's supported in all the major browsers? Except flash. Edit: I know about APNG and MNG, but the support is not what one would expect.