Board Optimization - [DBTech] vB Optimise 2.0.1 (Lite)

vB Optimise Lite

The newly revamped vB Optimise was created for vBulletin 4, but has now been made compatible for vBulletin 3.8. In this release I have re-coded vB Optimise from the gound and focused stability over features, you'll notice Phrase Caching and vBAdvanced Integration have bit the dust, this is to maintain a sync state between this version and the vBulletin 4 release.

Professional version & feature list available @ www.DragonByte-Tech.com/forum
Priority support for Lite version is handled at the Developers Website.


What does it do?

vB Optimise is intended to optimise vBulletin software by integrating several PHP "cachers" and handling data before vBulletin. This works by encountering and handling data prior to vBulletin in order to skip the arbitary execution that would be more server intensive.

Real-Life Statistics

We've teamed up with some Big Forums to show you the impact of vB Optimise, you can view this public chart which shows both our statistics and theirs:

View Public vB Optimise Resource Statistics

Features

• Supported Extensions
  • APC
  • eAccelerator
  • Memcache
  • XCache
  • WinCache
  • Filecache
• Style Cacher
  Caches style data to globally reduce a query within all vBulletin forum-based pages.
• Template Cacher
  Caches template data to globally reduce a query within all vBulletin forum-based pages.
• Datastore Cacher
  Forces custom datastore items from modifications (including those from vB's blogs) to use your configured Datastore Cache method instead of being forced into the database. This reduces page queries by where affected.
• vB CMS Template Caching
  (Automatic) Corrects many uncached templates within vB CMS to reduce upto 20+ queries on CMS pages (number varies based on content).
• Optimal Settings Check
  Provides a quick interface to identify possible settings which can be changed on your forum for further optimisation.
• Self-System Tester
  Provides a relatively straight-forward system check to ensure your vB Optimise installation works fully.
• Automatic Cache Flusher
  Automatically flushes cache within the Admin CP based on specific triggers to make sure content does not remain stale on your forum.
• XCache Authentification
  Supports XCache Admin Authentification by allowing you specify the username/password in a configuration if needs be.

Features - Pro

• Notices Cacher
  Caches users dismissed notices to reduce a near-global query within all vBulletin forum-based pages.
• Showgroups Cacher
  Caches the showgroups query which becomes more intensive as your user-base grows.
• Forum Display Query Enhancement
  Enhances a stock vBulletin query within Forum Display to speed up the page.
• Forum Home WOL Cache
  Caches Forum Home "Who's Online" to remove an intensive query and allow larger sites to display this data without impact.
• vB Cache Override (Feature not available on vBulletin 3)
  Ability to override vBulletins new built-in database cacher for the CMS / Forum Sidebar Blocks to remove anything from 1 to 20+ queries based on your content.
• Full Guest Caching
  Ability to cache entire pages and serve them saving not only hundreds of queries but upto 90% of CPU processing towards Guests.
• Statistical Resource Savings
  Ability to see just exactly how many queries per day vB Optimise has saved your database. You'll be surprised at the numbers.
• Forum Resource Statistic
  Shows off vB Optimise resource saving statistics directly within forumhome statistics.
• ....and more!

Release Notes

If you've used vB Optimise before you'll be aware the previous version had phrase caching, however this caused complications with the way phrases are used within vBulletin so it has not been ported over at this time.


Available Translations
v1.6.0 French - Thanks to finereader

Change Log

[>>] Version 2.0.1
New launch for vB 3.8

[>>] Version 1.6.1
Automatic Cache Flusher has additional parameters to make sure no data is stale
Resolved Bug: Potential PHP error when using eAccelerator which cannot flush within Admin CP on certain actions

[>>] Version 1.6.0
New OpCode Cacher Support: WinCache

[>>] Version 1.5.0
Resolved Bug: Style cache may have fetched ID 0 instead of correct file
Resolved Bug: Filecache permissions may not have worked
Optimisation: Re-wrote some base code to enhance operations.

[>>] Version 1.0.1
Added XCache Authentification Support
Added Filecache Support

Support

Priority support will be handled at DBTech.

FAQ

Q: I have WinCache installed, but vB Optimise tells me it's not?
A: WinCache only introduced OpCode support in version 1.1, if you're using version 1.0.x you will need to upgrade.

Q: I'm using the XCache method, flushing doesn't work?
A: If you have XCache authentification, turn the admin option on within vB Optimise Settings, then edit ./vboptimise/config.php and specify your XCache username/password. Alternatively you can disable XCache authentification within php.ini:

xcache.admin.enable_auth = Off

Q: I have eAccelerator installed, but vB Optimise tells me it's not?
A: eAccelerator does not provide the caching extension by default, you will need to recompile PHP with additional flags. For more information read eAccelerator documentation located here: http://eaccelerator.net/wiki/CompileConfiguration (Specifically look at: with-eaccelerator-shared-memory)

[Deceptor]

hIBEES, if vB Optimise is reporting an error then the method must not be available, it will test you have the functions available that are part of the method you selected, this works in the same way vBulletin does, does your vBulletin datastore run off of eAccelerator?

As for the profile bug, it has been fixed, the issue is caused by caching phrases with guests, the vBulletin session object goes its own root of querying phrases/languages for guests that currently I can't find a way to stop. This bug fix doesn't impact performance as caching phrases for guests still means the query is being ran, if anything it slightly helps by not attempting to cache phrases as they are continually called from the database when viewing as a guest.

This said, I can tell you my current forumhome statistics with the upcoming release of vB Optimise, this is a unmodified forum, with only vB Optimise installed:

As a member:

Page Generation 0.03050 seconds, Memory Usage 924KB, Queries Executed 4

As a guest:

Page Generation 0.02649 seconds, Memory Usage 860KB, Queries Executed 3

If you're wondering why my memory usage is so low, look into getting XCache installed on your server, at the time of fetching those results vB Optimise was using XCache too, along with vB Datacache using Memcache.

I'll have the new version out in the next couple of hours or so which will patch the issue and bring forward new features I explained in an earlier post

[veenuisthebest]

Page Generation 0.03050 seconds, Memory Usage 924KB, Queries Executed 4
Page Generation 0.02649 seconds, Memory Usage 860KB, Queries Executed 3

now that is a real cake. waiting for the next release.

btw deceptor, can you please take a look at my 1st problem as described here.

This started happening ONLY SINCE 1.1.0, and never happened with the last version 1.0.2

thanks

[Deceptor]

veeuisthebest,

Look at my above posts, the bug is fixed for the next release, to temporarily fix for now disable phrase caching, those won't add another query to your forum but will make more slightly bigger

[fattony69]

The only problem I had, which I searched the thread for was that my quotes, the name was only appearing as an underscore after installing this.

[Deceptor]

fattony, can you tell me if this occured as a guest or a logged in user?

Thanks.

[veenuisthebest]

Originally Posted by Deceptor

veeuisthebest,

Look at my above posts, the bug is fixed for the next release, to temporarily fix for now disable phrase caching, those won't add another query to your forum but will make more slightly bigger

I know profile bug is fixed. I was referring to my 1st problem actually.

Since enabling xcache, I am unable to edit any templates. Gives me a blank page on template saving.

This problem is gone when i switch to Filecache. And this happened ONLY in 1.1.0 (did NOT happened in 1.0.2)

thanks

[Deceptor]

My apologies veenuisthebest, I missed that.

I know when updating templates vB Optimise kills current cache, my guess is your XCache requires authentification? It should silently carry on. That said, if you could enable php errors on your server we'd be able to specifically see what the problem is.

I'll re-enable admin auth on my XCache server and see if I can replicate the issue

[logicuk]

Originally Posted by Deceptor

Also, logicuk, the only possible way this mod adds queries is if it fails to cache the data, if you enable vBulletin debug mode you should see several vB Optimise messages explaining what it's doing, when first caching data it will execute more queries than vB does purely to cache the data, after that the query reduction begins. I'm assuming it keeps trying to cache the content but it's failing, if you're using filecache, ensure ./vboptimise has sufficient perms (read and write, usually chmod 0777).

Im not using filecache, im using memcache..

[veenuisthebest]

My apologies veenuisthebest, I missed that.

Its just fine deceptor, np

I know when updating templates vB Optimise kills current cache, my guess is your XCache requires authentification?

ah I see! Yes, my xcache requires authentication but I cannot pass it as I am on shared hosting. I don't have rights to flush cache neither my host is turning it off as it is on a server level.

SO, the reason could probably be that whenever I edit a template, it stucks at flushing of cache, thus not saving the template, am I correct?

If that is the case, then I'll disable vboptimise (or switch to filecache for the moment) whenever I need to edit templates and switch it back ON when I would be done editing. Would that be fine?

I want to keep xcache only as its giving me far better performace than filecache and my host has installed xcache just for me lol

[Deceptor]

logicuk, could you turn on vBulletin debug mode, and take a look at the debug messages everytime you try to load a page and tell me what you see vB Optimise doing? As said, the only way it will keep adding queries is if it is failing to cache.

veenuisthebest, that solution would work, I assume you get a white page when attempting to flush the cache? Ideally I'd like to make it a little more solid, as in the future I'll probably be adding more places where the cache is killed to contend with new data, if your host could possibly turn on php errors so that you could tell me the error you're getting that'd be great