OpenCart Community

Can someone please explain what GZIP Output Compression Level is and how it affects OpenCart. I see that you can set the GZIP Output Compression Level in the Admin->System-Settings->Server Tab. I guess you can set to a value between 0 and 9. What does 0 mean, what does 9 mean? How can I tell what the best setting should be for my website?

Thank you for your help.
Brook

0 means no compression, and 9 is the maximum compression. Generally it's a good idea to set a value for it, to help speed up your page loading time. You can test out the loading speed of your pages after selecting different values here:

http://www.gidnetwork.com/tools/gzip-test.php

If i'm not mistake, Q suggest to use 1-4 for the compression level.

Thank you for your reply. Why would I set my GZIP Compression Level to 4 vs. setting it to 9? Can you help me understand why I should set my Compression Level to 4?

I have seen that some people set their Compression Level to 4, some people set their Compression Level to 6, some people set their Compression Level to 9. What are the technical pluses and minuses of setting the Compression Level to different values? Ex. 4 vs. 9 Just trying to understand this a little better.

Thank you for your help.

level 0 means no compression resulting in sending more bytes over the net resulting in longer pageloads.
the higer the compression level the less bytes are sent.
but compression means using processor time on the server so a high number of compression means high server loads resulting in the page sent later.
now you have to test and measure witch setting is the fastest for your server and that is the optimum setting

If Gzip is already active on the dedicated server, does setting Gzip compression level on OC admin help?

if it is active it just sits there waiting to get aktivated (gzip extension is installed).
there are a lot of php extensions aktive on your server but they only do something if they are called to do their aktion.

a little bit the same as you have microsoft office installed on your computer but you must use it if you dont use it it is not fuctioning

Thanks great info

I just discovered this setting, and found this very good thread to understand what it does, however...

I enabled it at 4, and tested my site at webpagetest.org and it now has this: http://gyazo.com/237df43c9728f0c54eb447d63102d19a

Why is only the root of my site showing gzip compression, but all the css and js files are not?