07-03-2007, 05:09 PM
Well, I'm pretty sure the "INI file format" used by MS (Get/WritePrivateProfileString) is around 100x slower then if you were to use MySQL. Doesn't mean you should replace it with everything, though. If it loads just at runtime, the speed doesn't really matter (ie settings), but if it is loading real-time, then speed couldn't be any more important.
MySQL isn't really good for its speed, though. Its fast, yes, but nothing compared to what you can get out of binary file systems. If you set up your binary files properly and with a good format, you can get at least 4x the speed of what you can out of MySQL. But MySQL is a hell of a lot easier to use - you don't have to convert the whole file system if you want to add/remove/change a value, like you do with binary. I like to use a combination of them both - load the values out of MySQL, then the values that are static (won't be changing while the game is running, like objects, and not like users) just save as binary so you can load it as binary from there on.
MySQL isn't really good for its speed, though. Its fast, yes, but nothing compared to what you can get out of binary file systems. If you set up your binary files properly and with a good format, you can get at least 4x the speed of what you can out of MySQL. But MySQL is a hell of a lot easier to use - you don't have to convert the whole file system if you want to add/remove/change a value, like you do with binary. I like to use a combination of them both - load the values out of MySQL, then the values that are static (won't be changing while the game is running, like objects, and not like users) just save as binary so you can load it as binary from there on.