DCForum import?

[kpayne]

Any plans to do a DCForum import file? I've already switched one of my clients to VBulletin 2.x from UBB 5.x.

I would drop DCForum and switch to VB in a heartbeat if there was a conversion. I can't just dump 15,000+ registered users and a couple hundred thousand posts in DCForum!

Ken

[miroslav]

you ran dc forum with 15.000 users? I have some 3.000 and it's not working that great...

I also am intersted in switching, but still haven't got a response from vBuletin sales contact... I need to purchase the script before making a conversion script :)

anyway do you think it would be better to send all users an email asking to set up a new password? This is because I can't figure out how to decrypt the DCforum passowrd to normal characters

[kpayne]

If you can't run DCForum with 3000 users, then you have no hope of running VBulletin. I've run DCForum, UBB and VBulletin, DCForum is by far the least resource intensive and runs a close second to VBulletin in features.

You can run 2-3 installations of DCForum with the resources required to run VBulletin.

[miroslav]

??? I see no lag with vBuletin... with dcforum, there is a second of delay when performing any task. all users say it's slow...

and it's not bugging the server, server is 90% free all the time :)

[kpayne]

Just wait until you get a lot of posts. Things will change in a hurry. VBulletin does not scale well.

I've got well over a quarter million postings with DCForum and it runs well.

[Steve Machol]

Originally posted by kpayne
Just wait until you get a lot of posts. Things will change in a hurry. VBulletin does not scale well.

I've got well over a quarter million postings with DCForum and it runs well.

Does not scale well?!? :confused:

I've seen a number of vB forums with over one million posts!

[tubedogg]

Originally posted by kpayne
[B]Just wait until you get a lot of posts. Things will change in a hurry. VBulletin does not scale well.

Actually you're wrong. It's MySQL that has scaling issues, and that's with concurrent users, not total users or number of posts. As smachol mentioned there are boards with well over 1 million posts and 50000+ users.

I'd like to see a DCForum with 1 million posts, or even half a million and 600+ concurrent users.

[klisis]

Originally posted by kpayne
Just wait until you get a lot of posts. Things will change in a hurry. VBulletin does not scale well.

I've got well over a quarter million postings with DCForum and it runs well.

Does DCforum use a database or flat file?

[kpayne]

Since VBulletin installs standard for MySQL, then by extension VBulletin has scaling problems.

No different than saying a Yugo can't go fast and then saying, no, its not the Yugo, its the little Fiat engine they use.

I have a dedicated server with VBulletin on one domain and DCForum on the other. The DCForum site has a quarter million pages and frequently see's 200-400 users at once.

We just installed VBulletin on the server for the other domain this past weekend. It starts seriously killing the server at about 120 users.

Before VBulletin, server load would hit peaks of 1.0-2.0, sometimes 3-4 during intensive searches. VBulletin put a stop to all that fun... the first night load hit 64.5! The server ate all its swap file and then proceded to crash. After some fine tuning the load it now sits around 4-5 all evening, but that's with searches disabled (until we get our new server in). Granted this server is not the biggest in the world but a 750 Mhz system with half a gig of RAM ought to be able to handle a message board, even a busy one.

In our case, VBulletin isn't going to be a problem, we can afford to throw more hardware at it and we're getting a much larger server installed. But the fact remains that VBulletin has serious problems with performance when there are more than just a few users at once.

Companies that can't afford more server power are stuck. You can state otherwise, but take a look at the postings on your own support boards.... people complain about the speed or tell stories of having their host shut down their domain for using too much CPU.

There's a simple solution.... serve the actual posting pages from HTML. Create an HTML page each time a post is made or replied to. Show that page to the user rather than dynamically building the pages each time regardless of whether or not they've changed.... Sure it has its disadvantages but it really makes a heck of a difference in speed.

Just my opinion.....

Ken

[tubedogg]

Originally posted by kpayne
Since VBulletin installs standard for MySQL, then by extension VBulletin has scaling problems.
No different than saying a Yugo can't go fast and then saying, no, its not the Yugo, its the little Fiat engine they use.Except in this case you can change the engine - for example, MattR (fanhome.com) ported vBulletin to Sybase. And I would venture to say that when the product itself can scale but the backend can't, it's not really a fault with the product. It's the same as if you put vB on a 200MHz server with 64MB of RAM and expected it to do 200 users concurrently - it ain't gonna happen, but that doesn't mean vBulletin is flawed.

Before VBulletin, server load would hit peaks of 1.0-2.0, sometimes 3-4 during intensive searches. VBulletin put a stop to all that fun... the first night load hit 64.5! The server ate all its swap file and then proceded to crash. After some fine tuning the load it now sits around 4-5 all evening, but that's with searches disabled (until we get our new server in). Granted this server is not the biggest in the world but a 750 Mhz system with half a gig of RAM ought to be able to handle a message board, even a busy one.
I'm going to assume that DCForum was running at the same time, and getting 200 to 400 users. So right there you've got 300 to 500 users online concurrently, which on a 750MHz server with a half gig of RAM isn't going to happen easily, without a LOT of fine-tuning and might not even be possible at all.

In our case, VBulletin isn't going to be a problem, we can afford to throw more hardware at it and we're getting a much larger server installed. But the fact remains that VBulletin has serious problems with performance when there are more than just a few users at once.
If it's so flawed how are there sites with 1 million + posts and 50000+ users with 600+ concurrent with server load in the lower single digits?

Companies that can't afford more server power are stuck. You can state otherwise, but take a look at the postings on your own support boards.... people complain about the speed or tell stories of having their host shut down their domain for using too much CPU.
Yes, on a shared host you can't exceed roughly 30 to 40 concurrent users. However this is not unique to vBulletin. The same goes for UBB (which trashes the HD more than the CPU or RAM) and other forum software.

[Wayne Luke]

Obviously there is merit to running vBulletin even though you say there isn't.

It was you that asked for a DCForum-vBulletin import script and you who said that you would drop DCForum in a heartbeat for vBulletin.

Great way to get the Developers to jump right on that script, which we provide for free... Tell their product is garbage. Not a technique I have seen before but hopefully it will work out.

[kpayne]

Well, seems some people didn't read everything I said.

I said VBulletin is great for those who can afford the hardware (and/or software if you want to shell out for a Sybase license). My company is such a company. Most arent.

For busy, smaller sites, its too intensive with MySQL and most won't be able to buy Sybase licenses). And I don't believe the fundamental problem is JUST the database. I believe its also because VB rebuilds each page every single time its requested. That's a lot of database hits. Why not just have the PHP code create an HTML page whenever its created or modified? Serve out the HTML instead of building it each time.

As to DCForum, its run fine on the same 750 Mhz machine with ZERO problems and the ONLY tuning ever done was to set the sticky bit on the .cgi and .pl files so they stay in the cache. Its running perfectly. At the same time, UBB 5.x has been running this machine. Load was pretty much non-existant. We dumped UBB because of the poor feature set. Imported UBB data into VB and the machine took a dump.

DCForum is a GREAT piece of software. The major reason I'd jump to VBulletin is the MySQL backend which allows me to write a lot of custom code easier than I can with flat files. VB also has a great deal of control over user and forum permissions. If it could get rid of the need to dynamically build pages with every http request it would be a stellar product that I could find little fault with. Whatever I do, I'll never recommend or go back to the poor hack called UBB.

Ken

[Essam]

I need a dcforum import script too.

[Nicholas Brown]

Originally posted by kpayne
For busy, smaller sites, its too intensive with MySQL and most won't be able to buy Sybase licenses). And I don't believe the fundamental problem is JUST the database. I believe its also because VB rebuilds each page every single time its requested. That's a lot of database hits. Why not just have the PHP code create an HTML page whenever its created or modified? Serve out the HTML instead of building it each time.


No Comment. if you dont like the Dynamic pages, reinstall precious UBB

Originally posted by kpayne
We dumped UBB because of the poor feature set. Imported UBB data into VB and the machine took a dump.


Hmm, strange. My customer was running a very popular UBB board and his server load was VERY high. Soon as I told him about vB, he bought it and his load is never higher than 2.0

Originally posted by kpayne
DCForum is a GREAT piece of software.

Id have to disagree with you there dude :)
I used it and wasnt impressed.

[kpayne]

Originally posted by Nicholas Brown


No Comment. if you dont like the Dynamic pages, reinstall precious UBB



Its good to see you have an open mind about solutions.... NOT. An attitude like that is exactly why we've had to double the system RAM and upgrade the CPU in the system to handle the exact same board. Throwing hardware at the problem should not be the solution. Also, daily bandwidth has gone up from 4 gig/day to about 6 for the same number of page views because the dynamic pages have a lot less caching.


Hmm, strange. My customer was running a very popular UBB board and his server load was VERY high. Soon as I told him about vB, he bought it and his load is never higher than 2.0


Doesn't sound like your customer's board is that popular.... what's the site?

With 1 gigabyte of RAM and an 850 Mhz CPU at 6 gigabytes of bandwidth per day, load stays about 2.5 - 4.5 during peak. We had to upgrade to this level to get to this unacceptably high (but somewhat usable) load. Its a stop-gap until we get the dual CPU server installed.

Take a look at www.turbodieselregister.com. Read the complaints about speed since last Saturday when VBulletin was installed.


Id have to disagree with you there dude :)
I used it and wasnt impressed.

What does the admin screen look like and what's the directory structure look like?

At the very least... the DCScripts guys are open to solutions to problems and often implement them. I hope the VBulletin staff is the same.

To the VBulletin staff: please address the load issue in future releases. 100% dynamic pages is not the way to accomplish this. If things stay the same, then the system requirements page need to be upgraded to be a little more honest. Tell the customers they'll need more RAM, more CPU and will have to pay for extra bandwidth. :( The upgrade to VBulletin is costing my client an extra $150/month. Had we known about the performance we could have prepared for it in advance and saved ourselves some headaches this past week.

Ken Payne

[MattR]

I think some mix of dynamic and static pages are the key for high-trafficked sites; e.g. use the database for the searching (and perhaps thread display and forum home) but store the posts in something like XML.

That way when you update a thread (e.g. add a new post, edit an existing one) you don't have to re-build the ENTIRE html document, you use PHP's XML parser to drill-down to the post you're looking for, update it, and you're good to go.

[klisis]

While observing this thread, I realize that it's getting nowhere.

kpayne won't agree and nor will tubedogg and others. So what don't you stop?

[miroslav]

look, vb forum and dc forum are not the same, dc is treaded style, this one is not.

so if you need treaded style, vb sucks major ass. if not, then vb is the one for you.

i cannot say anything on performance, since I never had vb (or will, since the sales department responded to my email very very very quickly....)

[WildWayz]

http://forums.gameplay.com or http://faster.wireplay.net switched from UBB to vB and they have over 2 million posts and thousands of members.

They all agree that it is a lot better using vBulletin than UBB - speed and resource wise.

They use to get no end of file corruptions with UBB ie when multiple people were replying/viewing the same page it would corrupt etc.

What I am trying to say, is you must have ballsed something up if your server is THAT much overloaded.

Gameplay's forums is possibly one of the biggest vB boards out there.

--James

[miroslav]

ubb forum is much much much more resource eater than dc forum... they were trying to compare dc forum and vb, not ubb and vb

[kpayne]

You aren't doing VBulletin justice with that forum referral. Wireplay took 6 seconds to pull up the main forum listing and 36 seconds to pull up the the Wireplay forum. I'm on a cable modem and ping times to their server are fairly fast. I'd say their system is a dog.

If Wireplay's speed is impressive then I am left with the conclusion that some people are easily impressed.

[Vinnie]

I am hosting DCForum and in the middle of a transition to vBulletin.

I chose vBulletin because it uses a database instead of flat files. This means easier administration and backup, and fault tolerance / load balancing.

The vBulletin developers and staff have been extremely helpful.

DCForum is a great piece of software. I like the interface.

However, vBulletin has more features and is easier to secure.

[ToraTora!]

It might be just me, but has anyone heard of pruning?
you cant tell me each and every page is worth keeping and dragging the server down.
we prune every 10-30 days, and the posts and threads that pertain simple "hi" or "huh" are deleted.
I think people like to brag how many pages and posts they have, but when you get down the meat and potatoes of some of those forums, a good percentage of it is useless garbage.

You take a site like this, and I can see hanging on to just about each and every post, because people actually post with some regard to others. Most of the information, if not all of it has relevance, which also means they save it.
Long story short, take a look around you here, and tell me if it is bogged down at all.
This thing flies when applied to the rite server.

Do some research, and quit your bitching man.
Maybe a server switch or upgrade is in your future. We did just that same thing, and have had nothing but great results.
There is not a forum system that can touch VB for the price, features, or support.

If its such a major issue with price, i heard EZ Board is free.
Im sure they can set you up in a Jiffy.

[WildWayz]

Originally posted by kpayne
You aren't doing VBulletin justice with that forum referral. Wireplay took 6 seconds to pull up the main forum listing and 36 seconds to pull up the the Wireplay forum. I'm on a cable modem and ping times to their server are fairly fast. I'd say their system is a dog.

If Wireplay's speed is impressive then I am left with the conclusion that some people are easily impressed.

Urm - fast here!

And I am on ISDN.

Besides, after 6:00pm GMT the kiddies get online. I think WP has over 800 people online at once - maybe more, so for it to be like that is understandable!

I would love to see another piece of software handle that load on the same spec machine.

To top it all, they are still using vB 1.13 and not 2.0 - which they will be installing shortly.

--James

[Troubadour]

I officially would like to request vbulleting developers to create a DCForum import filter.

Thanks!