I have a situation in my application. For each x-axis point in my chart, I am plotting 5 y-axis values. To calculate each of these 5 values, I need to make 4 different queries. Ie, for each x-axis point I need to fire 20 sql queries.

Now, I need to plot 40 such points in the my chart. Its resulting in a pathetic performance where it takes close to a minute to get all the data back from the database. Each of 4 different queries consists of a join between 2 tables. One has only 6 rows. The other close to 10,000. Each of the 4 queries has different WHERE clauses, so they are different queries. For each point in the x-axis, only the values for the where clauses change.

I have tried combining each of the 4 queries into one big string. Basically batch the four selects. These are again batched for each y-axis value. So, for each x-axis point, I am now firing one big command that consists of 20 different select statements.

Technically, I should be experiencing a big performance boost, right? Instead of hitting the db 40x5x4 = 800 times, I am now hitting it just 40 times. But instead of taking 60 seconds, it taking 50-55 seconds... not much of a help.

I am using MySql 5.1, and the 6.1 version of its .Net connector.

What can I do to improve the performance?

Edit:

One of the 4 queries is as follows:

SELECT
  SUM(TIME_TO_SEC(TIMEDIFF(T1.col2, T1.col1))* T2.col1 / (3600 *1000)) AS TotalTime
FROM Table T1
  JOIN Table T2 
  ON T1.col3 = T2.col3
WHERE T1.col4 = 'i'
    AND T1.col1 >= '2009-12-25 00:00:00'
    AND T1.col2 <= '2009-12-26 00:00:00';

The other 3 queries are similar, only the where clause changes slightly. This set of 4 queries is fired 5 times. The first 3 times against the join of table T1 and T2, passing in different values for col4. And the next two times against the join of table T3 and T2 passing in different values for col4. These 5 values are the y-axis values for a particular x-axis point.

The data returned by all these queries is the same format. so, we tried doing a UNION ALL on all these queries. No substantial difference. One strange thing, however, after indexing the foreign key on the table T1 [while it contained over a lakh records], the queries were using the index, but they had become slower. At times, the queries would take double the time to return the data.