xenForo Good for Old Computers & Slow Connections?

Chris Lawes

Chris Lawes

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Hi. I am trying to develop a good forum for a group (100 people) to use to collaborate and discuss projects. A large portion of the group is in rural India on basically 56k / dial-up connections and relatively old computers (like, up to 10-years old.)

The speed advantage of Xenforo sounds good, but will it be compatible with older browsers/computers?
Also, does the speed advantage actually apply to slow connections or is that more a server-cpu speed advantage?

I am also looking at SMF 2 and IBP 3.2, so comparisons to those in these areas would be helpful.

Thanks for your honest input
 
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Chris my honest opinion is to switch off your broadband and connect up using dial up yourself to give all of these a try. This is the only way you're going to get an accurate answer rather than rely on opinion. I see you are from the UK, there are still a few free dial up services you can use (pay for the call part obviously), that is if you have a machine with a modem in :)

However I should point out a couple of things. The IPB server is incredibly slow sometimes even on broadband (members there are complaining about it), XenForo has recently moved to its own server so is very quick. And, you will find individual thread content can affect things a lot - threads with lots of video and images embedded can run slow on any system.

You might be able to further streamline things with a cut-down skin for your chosen forum, or even use a mobile skin.
 
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Thanks Ingenious I was thinking to just cap my broadband with my router or something and explore. However I don't know how to "test" keeping server variables the same, other then just installing all 3 on my server and browsing them (would be an expensive test!)

Once I choose a forum software then I will look into a streamlined skin, but I am interested to hear if the inner software is actually faster or slower for dial up connections. What do you think about using a new modern HTML5 forum software for those with older browsers though, will it still work??
 
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Chris I have a test installation (actually a conversion of my vB forum) into both XenForo and IPB3.2, you are welcome to have a play as a guest, although you'd be the only person on the forum, at least both are installed on exactly the same server and database so you can get a speed comparison. Send me a PM if you want access details.
 
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Thanks Ingenius I will definitly do that. And yes I'm sure I can some software limiter to achieve roughly dial up results.

Does anybody want to comment on the file sizes of pages of xenForo vs IPB vs SMF ?

I'm leaning towards XenForo but I am worried that it won't load well on older browsers..

Edit: Thanks ankurs
 
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Chris as per the PM have given you access details, you can have a play with both platforms running the exact same data set on the same hosting. I've also detailed the reasons why I'm going with XenForo in preference to IPB. Hope that is some help to you.
 
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Thanks for that Ingenious I'll do some experimenting this afternoon. And yes definitely you made some helpful points in regards to IPB vs XenForo. I'll report back to the thread later, although I'm still hoping to hear from somebody official about modern Xenforo code running on older browsers..
 
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Thanks for the advice on PunBB, looks like good software. However I'm not really aiming to be the MOST stripped down fast loading forum ever, the team who is collaborating are all media creators, video editors, photographers, journalists, writers. A lot of them are in India, but I still want to run a cool, engaging forum. I just want it to also be extra-usable by those 30% that are on crappy connections.

So I'm looking for a powerful engaging forum that also loads really fast, basically. SMF is about as low as I am considering..
Also I looked and PunBB doesn't support Unicode, so diacritics can't be posted. This is a deal killer for Asian journalists.

But one question still unanswered for me is this: Is the speed advantage of XenForo over IPB something that will make much difference to dial-up users, or is the speed advantage mostly server-CPU?
 
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Chris Lawes said:
Thanks for the advice on PunBB, looks like good software. However I'm not really aiming to be the MOST stripped down fast loading forum ever, the team who is collaborating are all media creators, video editors, photographers, journalists, writers. A lot of them are in India, but I still want to run a cool, engaging forum. I just want it to also be extra-usable by those 30% that are on crappy connections.

So I'm looking for a powerful engaging forum that also loads really fast, basically. SMF is about as low as I am considering..
Also I looked and PunBB doesn't support Unicode, so diacritics can't be posted. This is a deal killer for Asian journalists.

But one question still unanswered for me is this: Is the speed advantage of XenForo over IPB something that will make much difference to dial-up users, or is the speed advantage mostly server-CPU?
Click to expand...

XenForo is as heavy as any other where connection speed is concerned
 
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Chris Lawes said:
...the team who is collaborating are all media creators, video editors, photographers...

But one question still unanswered for me is this: Is the speed advantage of XenForo over IPB something that will make much difference to dial-up users, or is the speed advantage mostly server-CPU?
Click to expand...
Those types of media being downloaded will dwarf any forum software speed.

I certainly would not worry about cpu-horsepower with 100 members with any forum software, as long as the hosting account is reasonably reliable. (I am assuming 100 total members, and a small % are online at one time).
 
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Darkimmortal said:
XenForo is as heavy as any other where connection speed is concerned
Click to expand...
Ahhhh there it is. That's what I was looking for. That helps me in my decision making, it's not a magic bullet for people with sattelite or dial up connections. OK.

What about the ability for the user to choose from a drop-down menu of skins, one of which could be "stripped down fast-loading" theme?
 
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Which part of india are you talking about ? I know what india use to be like 10yrs back and i doubt if it's same even in rural places of india when it comes to Internet surfing . If you already know few people from there why not ask them to check out xenforo.com and see how it works out for them .
 
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I would say vanilla forums or SMF 2.0 would be best for this. Javascript files can kill a dial-up connection in relation to software. Themes can be worked for a dial-up connection(remove images mainly), but if your using software that has huge javascript files, it can slow thing down a bit. In some cases not alot, but with dial-up every little bit counts.
 
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