Arcadem Pro 2.51 added a new cache feature aimed at greatly increasing the performance of Arcadem Pro. This feature was originally planned to be rolled out in Arcadem Pro 2.7, but was brought forward due to the performance hit the additional features in Arcadem Pro 2.50 presented. The cache system was significantly revised in Arcadem Pro 2.700 and 2.709-RC1.

What Is Cache?

Cache is a stored copy of data. In Arcadem Pro’s case, the cache stores commonly accessed data such as the configuration, home page, MySQL queries, and pages loaded by your users.

What Cache Methods Does Arcadem Pro Use?

Most arcade scripts do not have a cache, and even the few that do only implement a little caching. Arcadem Pro 2.8 and above implement several layers and methods of caching in order to make your arcade load as quick as possible. There are 2 methods of caching currently:

1. MySQL Cache - Queries are stored in the /cache/ folder each time they’re executed.  Then, when a query is executed again before the cache expires, the MySQL query is instead pulled form the cache instead of being filtered through MySQL.  This will definitely help mitigate the amount of resources needed for large volumes of traffic.  However, the side effect is that stats and other frequently updated material will not be updated until the cache expires, meaning some material on your site will appear slightly out of date.
2. Page Cache -Since 2.709-RC1 and above implement Smarty templates, you can optionally allow Smarty to cache the templates that are presented to the users.  This cuts down on the time it takes to render the web page, since it will not have to be parsed by PHP and Smarty.  However, the effects are noticable worse in terms of expired content.  This setting is only recommended for those on extremely high volume arcades that recieves upwards of 10 visitors a minute.

What Are the Pros & Cons of Cache?

PROS: In some cases, there is up to an 88% increase in performance over Arcadem Pro 2.50. In addition, using the cache frees up resources meaning you can scale up and have more users than before. Finally, this should slightly decrease your bandwidth usage.

CONS: Stats will not be updated as frequently, which can give your visitors the impression that your site doesn’t work properly. Additionally, there may be times when you will need to clear the cache in order for changes you make in the admin panel to appear to all users. Finally, cache requires additional disk space, and can take up several hundred megabytes on high traffic sites.