mchat server load etc

[testingground]

Hi,

What kind of load does mchat put on the server?
Is there a limit to the number of users online at any one time? ie would you experience any kind of slow down if 1000 users where online chat at once?
What is the recommended refresh time (default is 60 seconds) does this have an impact on server load if its set a lot lower?

Thanks

[kasimi]

Hi,

mChat doesn't artificially limit the number of users that can be online. It all depends on your hardware. It's actually less demanding in terms of number of database requests, but think of an mChat refresh as any other page request throughout the board. If your server can handle an additional 1000 page requests in a minute (~17 a second) then you're good.

If you lower the refresh rate, each user hits the server more often: 1000 users with a 20 seconds refresh rate will make your server receive 50 requests a second on average. I'd suggest starting with a 60 seconds refresh rate, and see how your server handles them. If your board's overall response time is low, no mChat timeouts and the CPU is cool about it, go to 50 seconds and repeat.

If you want to optimize mChat for performance, start by turning off "Live updates of edited and deleted messages" in the ACP Global Settings. This will save 1-2 SQL queries on each request.

If you're running phpBB 3.2.3 or earlier, apply the code change in this PR to save another SQL query on each request.

[terry2]

I did say to him on another site the mighty mchat can handle it depends on the server.

[testingground]

thanks