GZIP Output on big forum / additional tipps for less server load

[magicfox]

Dear all,

I'm running a pretty big forum with 10.000+ users and tried to optimize several things/options for better performance and (even more important) less server load. We used the GZIP compression for some years now (compression level: 2), but I read that GZIP would not make sense on "bigger" forums, since the server load would increase, although the traffic would shrink. We have "unlimited" traffic, so less server load would me *much* more important since traffic for us.

I deactivated GZIP now, which resulted in approx. 50% more traffic (before: 30 GB, after 65 GB daily traffic). Unfortunately I cannot see our server load, since this feature is disabled by our host. Is it the right decision to disable GZIP? If GZIP would make sense even on big forums: What GZIP compression level should I use? I'm still using vBulletin 2.3.0, BTW.

One more question:

Are there any additional tipps to decrease the server load on vB2.3.0? For example, does the feature "Show users browsing forums" make the server load decrease, if deactivated?

I already installed the hack "Optimize forumhome, the filburt1 Way", which resulted in two server crashes. This hack reduces the queries on the index-page from 19 to 15 (which is pretty good), but regarding "Microstats" the load from MySQL and PHP switched (before: ca. 70% PHP - ca.30% MySQL and afterwards vica-verse), so I deinstalled this small hack, since the server crashed two times after installation...

Thanks a lot!