Which cache is the best?

Oliver2000 · Post by **Oliver2000** » Fri May 02, 2008 2:42 pm

Hello everybody,

I guess I have a pretty big forum with up to 1500 guests and around 250 logged in users. There are around 1 million posts and as well some more or less heavy modding. (my own stuff plus some public ones as well)

I am running in some performance problems lately with my server and think I am doing something wrong with the cache and need some tips from anybody who does understand this better than me.

I grow with this forum like 6 years now and so I changed and changed and with each performance problem I invented something etc. how ever over the years i installed some cache solutions which are right now ALL running in the same time since I dont really know what they do.

I am sorry for the confusing explanation but I try to get more clear now.

1. I installed first of all the MOD Cache Posts System 1.0.2 © 2006 from AmigaLink, which worked fine in the time and gave me some performance back.
2. I installed extreme Styles which as well include a cache system which is also activ.
3. I installed a standart php cache system for the whole server
4. I included some expire and cache informations in my .htaccess

In the moment all is active excapt the .htaccess expire config since I had problems with the posts and forum overview pages. (users got old content presentet).

I mix up here some technics and solutions and wonder if this is the opposite of what i acctually want and I slow down the system by mixing up extreme styles with the Cache Post Mod.

question:

Which is the best cache solution for phpbb 2.x (latest realease)
Should I switch of Extreme style cache and/or Cache Post System?
Is there a way to work with the expire and cache commands in .htaccess without problems in the forum?

I realize i mix some things up and I am really not an expert on this so I apreciate any helpful hint.

thanks a lot,
best reagrds
Oliver

3Di · Post by **3Di** » Sat May 03, 2008 11:22 pm

More of a support/discussion topic than a MOD writers one, I guess.

A_Jelly_Doughnut · Post by **A_Jelly_Doughnut** » Sun May 04, 2008 9:49 pm

There are a number of tweaking topics in the 2.0.x Discussion forum. I'll move your topic there

Oliver2000 · Post by **Oliver2000** » Tue May 06, 2008 12:56 am

ok thanks!

Sorry for the confusion with the forums, I posted in the MOD forum since we talk about Mods... how ever thanks so far.

But does not anybody has a hint for me about my question? There are tons of tweaks out, but I did not find so far a hint for the best cache solution?

thanks for any input...

cya
Oliver

drathbun · Post by **drathbun** » Tue May 06, 2008 4:22 pm

There are different types of cache.

I have stopped using eXtreme Styles because under load testing it falls behind as far as throughput. That's a template cache.

You can also cache frequently run queries like the board_config table and the themes information. I don't know that I've seen a comprehensive MOD that does all of that thought. On my board I cache the config data, themes data, smilies data, and a whole lot more. The advantage of doing this is you run fewer queries through your database for data that doesn't change regularly.

You can also do caching at the database level. MySQL offers sql caching as well as index caching.

So the question "which cache is best" cannot really be answered without more detail.