UTF-8 support is available in SMF on any server running MySQL 4.1 or later. It can be enabled when the forum is installed, or through a wizard in the “Forum Maintenance” section of the admin center (converting all data to UTF-8). There are separate utf-8 versions of most language files available on the SMF website. The advantage to using UTF-8 is that the same character set will be used for all languages, making it much easier for users on international boards - foreign characters should display properly regardless of what language the user is using.