Does only one image need to be loaded?

Ok this might seem like a stupid question, but anyways.

If someone visits your website and you have 5 of the same image, does the loading time increase for each image that is loaded? Or does only one copy of the image need to be downloaded?

 

As long as it is the same image - it will be loaded only once, no matter how many times you are using it.

 

I think it will be loaded only once on recent browsers.
But you can check by yourselft using a BIG image (to see how is loading) several times on same page.

To be sure on older browsers, you can force a cached load with javascript:

uri = new Image();
uri.src = "picture.gif";

Code (markup):

And then you can use "picture.gif" on several HTML <img> tags.

 

The picture only needs to be downloaded once, afterwards it can be displayed as many times as you code it to be.

 

Thanks reped you all.

 

It will only load once. This is why repeating backgrounds are great. A 1px x 1px image will fill the whole page without load times suffering. It's how well designed sites work

 

same image must load once is definitely enough, why not?
it is going to the memory which stores it!!!