Performance issue on labeling

[Erki Veersalu]

Dear MapServer users,

I need help for improving speed of my web-application. I would really
appreciate if someone could comment following issue.
I'm using MapServer for displaying road network with labels over
PostGis,Postgresql. Database is not that big, but making a GIF file of
only roads (~200000 road segments) with angular true type labeling
takes ~3 sec. If I don't use labeling it's 0,5 sec and with bitmap
labels it's 0,6 sec
Mapserver is running on Solaris 9. 

Why is labeling so slow? What can I do to speed up generation of an image?

mapserv -v   
MapServer version 4.4.1 OUTPUT=GIF OUTPUT=PNG OUTPUT=JPEG OUTPUT=WBMP
SUPPORTS=PROJ SUPPORTS=FREETYPE SUPPORTS=WMS_SERVER INPUT=EPPL7
INPUT=POSTGIS INPUT=OGR INPUT=GDAL INPUT=SHAPEFILE

map file:
MAP
  NAME tuwa
  STATUS ON
  IMAGETYPE GIF
  SIZE 400 300
  EXTENT -876000 1330000 2230000 3650000
  SHAPEPATH "/usr/local/apache2/htdocs/mapserver/tuwa/data/"
  FONTSET "/usr/local/apache2/htdocs/mapserver/tuwa/data/fonts/fonts.list"
  UNITS METERS

  WEB
    IMAGEPATH "/usr/local/apache2/htdocs/mapserver/tmp/"
    IMAGEURL "/mapserver/tmp/"
  END

  SCALEBAR
    STATUS on
    INTERVALS 4
    SIZE 200 2
    COLOR 0 0 0
    OUTLINECOLOR 0 0 0
    UNITS kilometers
    LABEL
      COLOR 0 0 0
      SIZE small
    END
  END

  LAYER 
    NAME A40
    STATUS default
    CONNECTIONTYPE postgis
    CONNECTION "user=postgres dbname=tuwa"
    DATA "the_geom from streets"
    TYPE line
    LABELITEM "name"
    LABELMAXSCALE 45000
    CLASS
      SYMBOL 0
      COLOR 150 150 150
      MAXSCALE 50000
      LABEL
         TYPE TRUETYPE
         FONT "arial"
         SIZE 9
         MINSIZE 8
         MAXSIZE 10
         FORCE FALSE
         COLOR 0 0 0
         OUTLINECOLOR 255 255 255
         POSITION cc
         ANGLE auto
         ANTIALIAS TRUE
         MINFEATURESIZE 3
         MINDISTANCE 100
         PARTIALS TRUE
        END
    END
  END
END

Erki Salu
Estonia