Apache slow when I display too much text.

[PugJr]

This is my method of checking how long it takes to load a page:

 

$starttime = microtime();
$startarray = explode(" ", $starttime);
$starttime = $startarray[1] + $startarray[0];


$variable =  "(30 KB file here)";

echo $variable;
$endtime = microtime();
$endarray = explode(" ", $endtime);
$endtime = $endarray[1] + $endarray[0];
$totaltime = $endtime - $starttime; 
$totaltime = round($totaltime,5);
echo "$totaltime";

 

Gets around to .2 seconds. That of course is not useful timing. I assume this is a problem with Apache as I can declare the text as a variable without any lag but once I echo it, thats when it lags. If I'm wrong, please do move this topic.

 

Now if I was to reduce the size to 20KB it drops to .18 seconds and if I bring it to 10KB it drops to 0.00022 seconds. Clearly there is something wrong once I get to a higher display size as 0.00022 is perfectly acceptable but .18 seconds is awful just to display. Also, I looked up problems with apache and swapping/lack of memory is a problem so for your information:

 

            total      used      free    shared    buffers    cached

Mem:      1544152    1083376    460776          0    117748    620516

-/+ buffers/cache:    345112    1199040

Swap:      6152176          0    6152176

 

Nothing is swapped in this RAM usage and surely 460 MB of free RAM is enough to display 30 KB of text. So hopefully one of you guys know what could be the problem. Thanks. 

 

EDIT: Using Ubuntu 9.10 Server edition 32 bit.