OK, I will give you more details.

MySQL ver. : 4.0.16 CPU : 2xCelleron 1000 & 1GB RAM

Table CDS, have 1,053,794 rows, FT index on title, Data 67,646 KB, Index 70,401 KB

Table ARTISTS, Rows 292,330, FT on name, Data 8,096 KB Index 17,218 KB

Table TRACKS, rows 13,841,930, FT on title Data 625,360 KB Index 646,672 KB

ft_min_word_len = 3 key_buffer_size 786432000

Explain for both SQLs gives same info :

table type possible_keys key key_len ref rows Extra artists fulltext PRIMARY,ft_name ft_name 0 1 Using where cds fulltext PRIMARY,artistIndex,ft_title ft_title 0 1 Using where tracks ref PRIMARY,artistIndex PRIMARY 4 cds.cdId 13 Using where

Last results that I sent are not correct because I forgot to include one more join, artists.artistid = cds.artistid, bad oversight I know.... These are the new results :

Time for first SQL : 21 sec. SELECT artists.name, cds.title, tracks.title FROM artists, cds, tracks WHERE artists.artistid = cds.artistid AND artists.artistid = tracks.artistid AND cds.cdid = tracks.cdid AND MATCH (artists.name) AGAINST ('madonna'IN BOOLEAN MODE) AND MATCH (cds.title)AGAINST ('"music mix 2001"'IN BOOLEAN MODE)

Time for second SQL : < 1 sec. SELECT artists.name, cds.title, tracks.title FROM artists, cds, tracks WHERE artists.artistid = cds.artistid AND artists.artistid = tracks.artistid AND cds.cdid = tracks.cdid AND MATCH ( artists.name ) AGAINST ( 'madonna' ) AND MATCH ( cds.title ) AGAINST ( 'music' ) AND MATCH ( cds.title ) AGAINST ( 'mix' ) AND MATCH ( cds.title ) AGAINST ( '2001' )

One more thing that I noticed in last SQL, when I change, in FROM clause, positions of tables like this : FROM artists, tracks, cds, instead FROM artists, cds, tracks I get time of 1.9 sec. instead < 1 sec. ?

Regards