[weeno]

Originally Posted by BrandiDup

How exactly (in dummy terms) is it different from the search engine built into vbulletin? It looks so much like the standard search, which is very nice, but confusing to me...

When you initiate a search with normal vBulletin code, it performs a complicated MySQL query to your database. This can be so complicated that it slows down your database and make it unresponsive.

What Sphinx does is run an indexer, which pulls the data from the database and indexes it in a file on the hard drive. So when you search, you access these files. It doesn't tie up the database and is much faster and less resource intensive. The catch is you need to keep updating the files on a regular basis (usually with an automted script running ever 20 minutes or so).

So, from vbulletin's side, you need to modify vb's search.php file, so instead of asking MySQL for search results, it asks Sphinx. The results are then sent back to VB and displayed just like you are used to.

arn