i have a question about animated sprites

i want to create a animated sprite for a damage effect in my 1st person view
i used a solution 1280x1024 for my sprite, couz i want a good quality for this picture,but if i use this the frame rate will go down
if i use 800x600 it will be a little bit better
but if the solution of my sprite is lower, the quality of the sprite will be lower to
did someone know why the frame rate goes down?
did someone can help me pls?

Because it eats lots of video memory.

and how can i create a animated 1st person screen effect with a high solution
without frame rate problems?

By using a little big image, 512x512 for example. But, if you still want a high resolution image, just make the models low-poly, and delete the shadows etc...

are you talking about blood effects? if so, you'd be crazy to use anything over 256*256, its not the size of the pic that give the quality, its the quality of the pic... i spent all this morning changing my sprites from 512*512 to 64*64 and surprisingly enough, i kept most of the quality

how can i create a high quality pic with a smal solution?
i mean if i create a pic with 64x64 and fill the full screen with it, it looks very bad

a 64x64 image shouldnt be across the full screen.

ok, what exactly do you want here? blood effects when you shoot enemies? or an effect on screen to show the player is getting damaged?

an effect on the screen for show when my player is damaged
this is why i use high solution, did you know a other way?
streams?

did i can use some gif files? this i can create with photoshop easy