[Vince]

It is faster if you know how to use it correctly. For instance, searching a player by name is much slower than searching a player by unique ID and should be avoided. The only time you search by name is when the player first joins. For every query after that you use the unique ID. Look up information about keys and indexes in SQL and how and when to use them. Also have a look at the EXPLAIN keyword. Furthermore if you send 300 queries in one second (in a loop, probably) while the average is maybe 10 queries a second then of course you will see a spike. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out.

Also WHY are you still using R5 when we're currently at R41 which is MUCH more efficient?