low memory images

[counterp]

Is there an alternative to BufferedImage or a way to really cut down on memory usage for it?

[Cero]

As I understand it, images/textures have to be uncompressed in RAM; even if they weren't you'd have to decompress them every time from ram, which would be slow.
so only way to reduce it would be to cut/slice the image and use only parts

and have only the images in ram you need at a certain point... load images into ram using a thread, stuff like that

[counterp]

crap, I figured I would have to end up saving the images to the harddrive >:L

EDIT: I did it and everything went better than expected... the delay isn't horrendous at least