First time poster here, so bear with me if I ramble some.

I'm creating a commercial gaming site with Xoops. I've installed the Newbb 2.0 RC2 module and am seeing some delay while the page is processed on the server side. The page takes no time at all to display once it is sent from the server to the client. I'm pretty new to php as well, but I'm a proficient coder, so I've browsed through most of the code and made several changes already.

(For example, I've made it so threads can be marked as private. In a bidding type environment users can hide their bid posts from everyone but moderators. I did this by meddling with the karma system.)

I'm not really using much of the extra functionality of the forum so I was wondering if removing the php code that I don't use would streamline and speed up the forums to any significant degree?

Also, would changing the pngs to gifs or text links make a difference as well? I read somewhere that it takes IE longer to render pngs. I'm tempted to rip out all the image code and just place the images directly into the templates. Other than fixing the png transparency issue in IE, what advantage does having all the image processing handled outside of the template?

Is php a pure interpreted language or does it compile anywhere into bytecode or lower? If php is an interpreted language, it would seem if I can remove as much unneeded code as possible, the forum would work faster.

I'm waiting until Newbb 2.0 Final to start really ripping everything up bigtime.

Is there any type of caching that can be done in the forums? I don't see how there could be, but just asking.

One other quick comment. I noticed that in IE the drop down menues appear behind the select boxes in the "Sorted by" section and other areas. You can make those appear above the select boxes by backing the drop downs with a blank iframe. However, I don't know if the transparency would work then.

For a "newbie" you've just asked some pretty advanced questions . I can't answer them all as I'm more on the system engineer side of things than coding, but I'll answer what I can.

1) I found that RC2 was really slow too when using IE. However, RC3 and above have an option to allow png transparence attribute with IE which has really given it a speed boost for IE users.

2) I'd like to see what you've done with your bidding idea. Can you give any more details, or point us to any examples of similar systems?

3) To my understanding php is a pure interpreted language. you might want to check at the php site for clarification though.

4) Caching can be set. Blocks aren't an issue, but there is a problem with module level caching and the drop down menu's atm to which phpbb and predator have a hack for hanging around somewhere to fix it until a proper XOOPS core fix can be implemented.

The contributors to newbb 2.0's slow-down could include the multi-level of permission system, rich features and button display (such as png with IE).

As many as possible configurable parameters have been available in the backend.
If you prefer speed more than new features, just disable some ones, such as choosing auto for image type, disabling whoIsOnline, disabling permission table, ...