Slowness when loading page with many attribute values

[jameszeller]

Hi, I am setting up a page for a custom made dress. One of the attributes is fabric color. That option has about 50 values in a drop down box. Another option is ribbon color, and there are about 30 of those in a drop down box, and also a bow color, which also has the same 30 values in a drop down box. So you can see that for that one product, those drop down boxes have A LOT of values to load into the dropdown boxes.
This seems to be causing a delay of over 10 seconds each time the page loads. I took off those attributes and the time delay went down to less than 2 seconds, so its clearly the amount of values in the dropdown boxes.
Is this normal, and what can I do to make it faster? Does sort order make a difference? Caching? I tried all the types of database caching, but all seem the same effect.
If I can't resolve, I may have to take the undesirable route of just having the choices typed into a text box instead.

thanks in advance.

[Ajeh]

Attributes do slow things down quite a bit when there are a lot of them ...

Usually, you need to have more ... depending on the server speed ... to have the slow down on 50 to 100 be more than 2-5 seconds ...

You could customize the code for the attributes module to not perform some of the calculations that you are not using to speed things up ...

However, unless you are a coder you may wish to post something in the Commercial Help Wanted forum ...

v1.4 will have a much faster and more manageable method of handling attributes but that is not due out for some time ...

[eye will]

Would it be possible to group the attributes on another page either separate or as another item. Would this speed it up.

On my site http://www.designerspecsbypost.co.uk/

when you look at the designer sunglasses they load quickly as they do not have any attributes whereas the designer frames do and take ages for each frame to load.
Even if it doesn't speed things up, if it had a separate page/area then this page could take ages to load, but at least it will be a once or twice occurrence just before purchasing not every single designer frame being enough to put potential purchasers away.
If this is a viable option to speed things up before 1.4 arrive, how do I go about doing it?

Will

[Ajeh]

Even when the new version comes out, you will want to test/upgrade your site carefully and make sure all is working well before going live with that new version ...

I would try adapting the current code in the attributes.php module and comment out any functions running for calculations that are not used by your Products to improve performance ...

Without trying your database on another server, I cannot tell you how much of this delay could be due to server perfomance issues, if any ...

[eye will]

Good suggestion

I will try it out on another server, a good suggestion. There is no point spending hours tweaking it to find that moving servers would be all I needed to do.

Will

[Ajeh]

Let us know what the solution is that works for you on this ...

[Ajeh]

I was thinking the solution would be a better configuration on the server or one that wasn't overloaded as looking at your attributes there are a lot of them, however, even that many should not be as slow as your site is ...

I would still look at perhaps customizing the attributes module if the pages are still loading in more than 2 seconds ... people so hate to wait for anything these days ...

[eye will]

Can you give me any hints on how to customize the attributes module and where it is located. I have been trying to think laterally to remove these delays. I have even considered removing some of the drop downs, but I feel that customers need their hand held when ordering glasses as they are concerned they may make a mistake and the specs would be useless.
You are correct in its present state customers will just leave after the first page or two.

Any hints, tips, help gratefully appreciated.

Will

[Ajeh]

The Attributes module is located in the:
/includes/modules/attributes.php

Look for the functions that you do not use on your shop for things that could be turned off on it ...

[DrByte]

Marginal performance gains can be attained by turning off features you don't use from Admin->Configuration->Attributes Settings