I am building a game site with a lot of queries. For optimisation what is best. handeling the data with a lot of tables and relations or fewer tables but with many fields?
I would think, especially regarding to inserts and updates that fewer fields with many fields would be better than many tables. That would give more queries or???
I'm trying to figure out what is best course I am experiencing high load on my server at the evenings when I have a lot of users...
Start off with the database normalized. Ensure that you have the appropriate indexes for the queries/updates/inserts that you are doing. Use optimize table periodically.
If you are still encountering problems do some profiling to find out where the performance is insufficient. Then consider either denormalizing or perhaps rewriting the queries.
In addition make sure that the system cannot have deadlocks. That really messes up performance.
i don't think the number of columns effects anything, really. it's all about how well you've indexed the columns. if you do more updates then selects on a particular field, you might want to drop the index if you have one.
not really an answer, just something i've noticed.