Resource Limitations

I've been running into resource problems with Dolphin and I was looking for some insight.  I'm running Dolphin on a VPS and I've been running into some load problems.

I was wondering what are the minimum requirements for running Dolphin and approximately how many simultaneous users I should be able to support with my current resource allocation?

I currently have 134MB of real memory,  288MB of virtual memory with a 1.6GHz Intel Xeon CPU.

It just seems that when I have a few people on at the same time it gets really, really slow, and then if too many people are on, the whole thing just dies on me.

What sort of resources do I need to secure to realistically run Dolphin on a VPS?

The website in question is http://www.pinballhaven.com

Thanks in advance,

Phil

As a follow on to my original question, I've noticed that my apache errors logs have quite a few errors.  Could these errors be causing my resource problems?

Thanks again.

To effectively run Dolphin you need:

Memory, Memory and more Memory.  The fact that your running 134mb of memory reminds me of the days of 386 computers (not talking about the 386 servers either.)

The minimum VPS should have 1GB of memory and that should be used as an incubator to build and initially grow your site.  It won't take you long to outgrow it and have the need for a dedicated server with considerably more memory and space.

My smallest server (no, I don't host anyone but myself) has 8GB of memory on it.  The fact that your on a VPS means your sharing resources with other sites inside the same box, so the processors speed will be dependent upon the number of users on those other sites also.  The VPS simply provides a hard partition to keep other site owners from spilling into your files, hard drive space (you still share hard drives) with them.

You can grab a VPS from HFW for about 35 a month with a GB of memory that will more than support you for a while.

Ok.  Thanks.  That's what I thought.  I wanted to start out small and if there were any interest I would grow the website around it.  I guess I started out too small.

So would a 1 GB of memory support 10-15 simultaneous users?

Thanks for your quick response.

Phil

I just spoke to the folks at hostforweb and their VPS-1 only comes with 256MB of RAM which isn't much more than the resources I previously described, and they said I shouldn't have a problem running Dolphin on that plan.

So now I'm confused.  It sounds like 256 RAM is enough, so I don't think I should be running into this much of a problem.

Jabneel, sorry about that... The VPS-1 comes with 256MB of guaranteed memory available to you at all times, but it has up to 12GB of available memory if you need it for heavy load moments.  This basically means the box your VPS is on will have 12GB on it and all the VPS's on that box will share the resources, similiar to shared servers sharing resources.  If a site begins to slow down other sites then HFW will automatically step in and move the offending site to a different box to allow the other sites to run better.

When I had my site on the VPS-1 We never experienced a single time the sight ran slow, regardless of the number of people we had on it. 

Funny that's not how the sales person described it to me.  That makes it alot more appealing.

That is how it works, that's the reason that they list the minimum and maximum on the page, to show you that you can obtain the higher memory during load times, and you are paying for it.  Just don't expect to pull that load 24/7, as that will be cause to request you to upgrade.  As with any host, you have certain minimum resources, but it's not really possible to limit the maximum memory when your in a shared environment, which VPS is to a point.

If you like you can add additional guaranteed minimum memory to your account which will cause the site to perform much better at all times and not just maximum load times.