[fennecfoxen]

> IMO, the 256-color dithering was more of a necessary evil for most gif creators, although some took advantage of it.

I'm under the impression that the format only specified 256 colors per palette, and that you could use different palettes on a per-frame basis, including frames with 0ms delays between them. and I know some software existed to make this possible, though I don't recall if it made it possible with animation at the same time...

[TheZenPsycho]

the format permits frames with 0ms delays. the problem is that there has never ever been a browser that respects the 0ms delay. On the whole, the status quo is that any delay under 10ms gets upgraded to 10ms.

Newer (current) browsers have lowered that to 6ms, and in chrome, 3ms. As yet, there has been no browser that respects the 0ms delay (as in, supposed to display instantaneously, so 2 frames with 0ms delay is supposed to look like 1 frame).

The justification for this is backwards compatibility with incorrectly authored gifs. So .. there you go.