For a few hours each day for the past week now I've been working on optimizing the search pages of the RGR and VGR. I finally got the pages to render between 25% and 50% faster which is a pretty big deal, especially when these pages not only get hit by a lot of users but a ton of bots as well.

Below are some examples of pages that got faster based on what I saw bots hitting. The first URL of each section lets you test the render speed before the changes and the 2nd URL lets you test the render speeds afterward. In some cases, the results are also better. Keep in mind that these render times are based on my render times and my render times are longer than anyone else since my pages have more information to load.


https://www.vizzed.com/play/ratt&test=old
Before: 1.216 seconds
https://www.vizzed.com/play/ratt
After: 0.645 seconds

https://www.vizzed.com/play/inurl%20index.php%20id=10&test=old
Before: 1.281 seconds
https://www.vizzed.com/play/inurl%20index.php%20id=10
After: 0.637 seconds

https://www.vizzed.com/play-mame&test=old
Before: 0.754 seconds
https://www.vizzed.com/play-mame
After: 0.572 seconds

https://www.vizzed.com/playonlinegames/index.php?page=36&sort=best&category=all&test=old
Before: 0.803 seconds
https://www.vizzed.com/playonlinegames/index.php?page=36&sort=best&category=all
After: 0.609 seconds

https://www.vizzed.com/play/Cyberworm&test=old
Before: 0.999 seconds
https://www.vizzed.com/play/Cyberworm
After: 0.696 seconds

https://www.vizzed.com/play/sega&searchBy=publisher&test=old
Before: 0.550 seconds
https://www.vizzed.com/play/sega&searchBy=publisher
After: 0.429 seconds


It's always great to find ways to speed up sections of the site, especially since having those pages faster results into the rest of the site loading faster and can result into less site issues and down time. I also recently sped up the Memberlist page as you can see in this thread. The ultimate goal is to get all page render speeds below 1 second for my account, below 0.750 for average users and below 0.500 for guests.

If you have any questions or feedback, let me know. If any search pages are no longer functioning properly, let me know ASAP.

EDIT: I just invested a few more hours fater figuring out a way to increase speeds even more. This means you could potentially see speed increases by up to 60% or more!

Staff : If any of you or if anyone else notices the RGR or VGR search not functioning like it normally does, be sure to let me know right away.

Sounds good!

I'll be doing a bunch of RGR work tomorrow morning so I'll keep an eye out for anything strange happening.

Glad to hear it's faster now. Hopefully the speed increases help site wide and not just for the RGR pages.

The only thing I've noticed wrong with the RGR is that all the games are listed as having 0 plays and 0 ratings for some reason. Other than that, everything's working fine for me.

geeogree : Yeap the entire site will see an increase in speed. Basically when I optimize a section of the site that gets a lot of traffic, it reduces the strain on the servers which results into the rest of the site being able to use up resources that it normally wouldn't have been able to. It also decreases the amount of times the site gets really slow or goes down.

gamerforlifeforever2 : I actually came up with another idea on how I can increase the speed of the search pages even more shortly after making this thread. Since then I've been in the process of implementing and testing out my idea so until I'm done, there will be issues like that here and there. I should be done within an hour hopefully.

Wow good job David, this will certainly be nice for people who use the RGR and VGR on a regular basis. So again good job and keep improving this great site ^^

I've come across two bugs which are likely because of this update:

• Any newly added playable game will not display on this page:
https://www.vizzed.com/p/?sort=id
(although it does display on this page):
https://www.vizzed.com/g/?sort=id

• I'm not able to disable MAME pages. The option is still there on the edit-page but it doesn't do anything.

tRIUNE : Those issues should be fixed but since I didn't test them out, you'll have to confirm for me.

Confirming the issues are fixed. That was quick, thanks.

Also the site seems a lot faster with this update. Awesome work.

Unfortunately there seems to be another bug, which may have been caused by me, which is related to the same issue I reported. A game which I was working on fixing for a user-reported game no longer shows in search results, although on the edit-page it's listed as active:
https://www.vizzed.com/playonlinegames/game.php?id=60458

Search results:
https://www.vizzed.com/play/SDI+-+Strategic+Defense+Initiative&mame=true#searchresults

tRIUNE : I'm pretty sure I just fixed that issue now. I tested it out as well. I disabled the game and confirmed that it no longer came up in results and then I enabled it again and confirmed that it came up in results again.

OK it's fixed thanks. New problem: games added to the VGR (as non-playable) are showing in the RGR now.
https://www.vizzed.com/p/?sort=id

I've been mucking around on the RGR pages on and off all day and haven't had any problems so far.

I haven't done TONS of stuff but it all appears to be working like normal.

tRIUNE : The issue should be fixed now. Please confirm for me if it is.

geeogree : Thanks for confirming.

Awesome, yep it's fixed. Thanks.