Caching Level

[sevamaster]

Hi there,
I would like to now the difference between Caching Levels of SMF.
I mean, I want to know detailed difference between levels 1, 2 and 3.
I am using smf 2.0 rc3 and have APC installed.

[Kill Em All]

I believe the higher the level, the more the site caches. I have unfortunately not been able to try the caching feature because my host doesn't have an accelerator installed.

[Mick.]

Im using level 2 recommended by vbgamer for performance reasons.    Must be the fact that i have lots of pictures and attachments.

No issues.

[sevamaster]

Thanks guys,
But why level 3 is not recommended?
And what does each level do?

[Kill Em All]

Level 3 is not recommended because it puts a lot of stress on the cpu. So if you are on a shared hosting, it isn't recommended because your host will suspend your account, or throttle because you are using up to much cpu. Level 3 caches a lot of info such as pictures, attachments, etc. Level 2 caches some pics, among other files, level 1 caches the minimum.

It just depends on what kind of server/who hosts your site. That is the biggest factor.

[Arantor]

The different levels of caching mean more stuff from the DB is pushed into the cache, rather than being loaded each time.

If caching is off, everything is loaded every time. Everything is up to the second, and live, but it requires more CPU to run.

Each successive level puts more in the cache and less is drawn from the DB but it looks increasingly stale. Generally there's no need to go above level 2.

On a shared host, the options aren't even available anyway because shared hosts don't provide such features, and if they did the sites that needed them would have been shut down beforehand anyway.

[sevamaster]

Thank you very much.