I'm setting a background image on my BODY tag as follows:

body { background: url(../images/bg_9550x1950.gif) no-repeat left top ;}

As the filename suggests, i'm actually calling a background image thats 9550 wide by 1950 tall.

In FF and Safari, the background image displays without issue. However, in IE, it doesnt display at all.

Seems the dimensions of the BG image is over some threshold for IE to display. For if i reduce it to something much smaller, 1000x204 for example, IE will display the background image.

The threshold seems to be dimensional, not based on filesize. I tested with a background image of same dimensions but with a filesize of only 90k (still large) but IE still doesnt display it.

I was unable to locate information specifically declaring where or what this dimensional threshold is.

Can someone educate me at what dimensions IE will cease to render my BG image?
Are there options and/or workarounds?

I have a design proof-of-concept thing in my head involving a simple yet rather large BG image. If IE cannot/will not render background images of this size, i'd like to learn why.

Thanks in advance...

i'm actually calling a background image thats 9550 wide by 1950 tall.

WHY on earth are you using something so huge???

There is no way for anyone to help you w/o seeing ALL the code or a URL to the problem page.

WHY on earth are you using something so huge???

I was wondering the same thing.
I could hardly even create an image that large and save it to test.

Even if IE "could" render the image, the load time would take forever.

Is this a "horizontal scroll" design by chance?

You could/should design a "repeat-x" bg image.

I was in very early design conversations with a client, who had seen on other sites how a background image could be animated, or otherwise caused to scroll.

So, what i was playing around with was trying to scroll the background image to a different X/Y coordinate based on user clicks (which still seems possible via jquery). Half me teaching myself something new, half investigating a design action item from our meetings.

Thats the background, if you'll pardon the pun. That the background image was so large was simply a by-product of the test, proof of concept.

Thats when i ran into the issue where IE has some threshold on size of background image. Which is still unresolved really, which nags at my curiosity; to know why, or at what pixel dimensions or file-size IE ceases to display a background image.

However, this idea of theirs has been totally scrapped in favor of more traditional layout.

Thanks for reading & responding...