Image, Picturebox or Commandbutton

[onerrorgoto]

My current project consists of 56 commandbuttons that I reguarly change the picture-property on, either when the user clicks on it or when the status changes for the app, the status is checked every 100ms.

It represents the stage-floor in an operahouse, the commandbuttons are the hatches in the floor and the user chooses wether to open or close them by clicking on them.

The app is begining to perform slow, should I consider changing the commandbuttons to image or pictureboxes.
If I remember correctly pictureboxes takes less memoryspace.
Would that speed up my app, or actually does loding a picture into an image or picturebox go faster than loding an image into a commandbutton?

All suggestions appreciated.

[Sam Finch]

Imageboxes all the way.

[onerrorgoto]

I made a small recount on my app and I have 204 commandbuttons on the main form.
But I only change the picture-property on 56 of them reguarly.

Sam:
Thank you for your quick reply.
Why did you suggest imageboxes?
Don't get me wrong, I only want to hear your arguments for imageboxes versus pictureboxes.
Isn't pictureboxes smaller in use of memory-space?
I only need the click-event and to change the picture-property on the control.

[pardede]

i do remember reading somewhere that image controls less heavy is than the picture control. for one i think it was that it responds to less event, and another reason was the way it holds the graphics...