When to use memcache

[Coleman Watts]

I understand that enabling memcache can improve Civi's performance in some circumstances.
I'm unclear about what those circumstances are. Is there a certain db size threshold below which it does not make sense to use it?
I'm currently working on a site with only 10k contacts and 1 gig of ram on a VPS. Is this too small to bother with memcache?
Are there any circumstances in which memcache will degrade performance?
What are the recommended cache settings?

[Eileen]

Hey Coleman - if you don't get answers here I'm told lcdweb or koumbit are good people to ask

[CiviTeacher.com]

I have enabled memcache on a server, and then 'flipped the switch' to CiviCRM memcache = 1 only once.  The experience was without obvious error, but also without obvious noticeable improvement. 

The environment was a 2GB Debian dual-core dedicated server - quite fast.

I do see things that I wonder 'is that because of memcache?' on occasion such as newly created tags not showing up on Contact tag tabs, or in Drupal Views for an hour or more.  I do not know if these are memcache related or not.    This is my limited experience.

[Erik Hommel]

Our host has used Memcache on our site, and there was definitely an improvement performancewise. Unfortunately it also meant that our site kept flipping back to English whilst it should be in Dutch. So we posted on the forum and switched off Memcache....

[xavier]

@Erik,

Mathieu has worked to use native gettext instead of a php version.

This should improve things. Would be great if you could test for nl

http://issues.civicrm.org/jira/browse/CRM-9976

[Donald Lobo]

Erik:

we should fix the multi-lingual memcache issue. Wanna ping me on IRC and we can get a debugging and fixing session going

lobo

[Erik Hommel]

lobo: no because it is way over my head  and i will not know what I am talking about What I will do though is get our hosting guy to contact you on IRC.

[Erik Hommel]

Lobo, we (techie Bas and me) will ping you on IRC at 16.00 (our time) today....