Where did the avatars go?

cgrabe said:
Yes, but it doesn't make any more requests than it would anyway. With the default settings, if there are 3 objects on a page, Firefox will request the first object, download it, request the second object, etc. If you change the setting to allow 2 concurrent requests, Firefox will request the first two objects, wait for one of them to finish, then request the third object whithout waiting on the other to finish. This way, the entire page is downloaded faster, but there are still only three requests made to the server. If a website gets 10,000 hits per day with dozen of objects served for each hit, each user requesting several objects at a time instead of requesting them sequentially isn't going to make any real difference.

It would make more requests if 100 users request at 30 MaxRequest per page.
Consider it this way. The default MaxRequests for FF is 4, when tweaked to 30 it requests 30 objects\images at one time rather than 4. Now resources on the server are now requested at 30 objects\images per page, per user. So if 100 users request a General Freshwater topic at the same time, it is only 400 items requested at a time (using the default MaxRequest 4). However, when MaxRequests is changed to 30, 3,000 objects are requested at once, and no matter which way you slice it, that is going to slow down the server.
 
sublime1184 said:
It would make more requests if 100 users request at 30 MaxRequest per page.
Consider it this way. The default MaxRequests for FF is 4, when tweaked to 30 it requests 30 objects\images at one time rather than 4. Now resources on the server are now requested at 30 objects\images per page, per user. So if 100 users request a General Freshwater topic at the same time, it is only 400 items requested at a time (using the default MaxRequest 4). However, when MaxRequests is changed to 30, 3,000 objects are requested at once, and no matter which way you slice it, that is going to slow down the server.
You do have a point. If there happen to be 100 simultaneous visitors, load will be significantly higher than usual until those requests are fulfilled. Remember though that those users won't be contending for cycles a few moments later when they would otherwise still be working through their list of objects. I will agree that the worst-case-scenario of concurrent requests will be worsened by the setting, but the frequency of it happening will be reduced (due to moving each client in and out faster) and load on average will not be affected. It shouldn't be a problem at all except for sites already frequently saturating their Internet connection or maxing out their servers.
 
I think that we are both right. I always enjoy a civil debate. What about 56k users? If they had their M.R.'s set to 30 wouldn't the avatars cause a lag worse than dsl\cable internet users? Also, what would be AC's solution for the server probs, other than upgrading every 3 months?
 
It's all my fault, what with all my bizzare avatars of late. The 32bit colour demand overloaded the bandwidth capacities. Sorry. I broke the Interweb.
 
Matak said:
It's all my fault, what with all my bizzare avatars of late. The 32bit colour demand overloaded the bandwidth capacities. Sorry. I broke the Interweb.


Uh-oh... Matak I would not be so quick to take the blame....We all seem like good people but if AC went down and you admit to it, then you might get some hate mail. ;)
 
Civil debates are fun. Keeping them civil is the hard part though.

56k users shouldn't create any extra lag. It'll take them longer to complete the requests, but that's already the case and we're right back where we started. Regardless, I think most webservers have a configuration option to limit the maximum number of simultaneous requests per user and an overall maximum number of simultaneous requests. I could be wrong.

Well I've gotta pack so I can leave town tomorrow. It's been real.
 
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