I'm testing it at the moment and so far all you need is the htaccess with nginx has in its vhost. below what it should look like

PHP Code: 
server {
    
listen      ip:80;
    
server_name home;
    

    
root /home/....;

    
rewrite ^/page/(.*)$ /index.php?cstart=$1 last;

    
location / {
        
rewrite "^/([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{2})/([0-9]{2})(/?)+$" /index.php?year=$1&month=$2&day=$3 last;
        
rewrite "^/([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{2})/([0-9]{2})/page/([0-9]+)(/?)+$" /index.php?year=$1&month=$2&day=$3&cstart=$4 last;
        
rewrite "^/([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{2})(/?)+$" /index.php?year=$1&month=$2 last;
        
rewrite "^/([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{2})/page/([0-9]+)(/?)+$" /index.php?year=$1&month=$2&cstart=$3 last;
        
rewrite "^/([0-9]{4})(/?)+$" /index.php?year=$1 last;
        
rewrite "^/([0-9]{4})/page/([0-9]+)(/?)+$" /index.php?year=$1&cstart=$2 last;
        
rewrite "^/([^.]+)(/?)+$" /index.php?do=cat&category=$1 last;
        
rewrite "^/([^.]+)/page/([0-9]+)(/?)+$" /index.php?do=cat&category=$1&cstart=$2 last;
        
index  index.php index.html index.htm;
    }

    
location /tags/ {
        
rewrite ^/tags/([^/]*)(/?)+$ /index.php?do=tags&tag=$1 last;
        
rewrite ^/tags/([^/]*)/page/([0-9]+)(/?)+$ /index.php?do=tags&tag=$1&cstart=$2 last;
    }

    
location /user/ {
        
rewrite ^/user/([^/]*)/rss.xml$ /engine/rss.php?subaction=allnews&user=$1 last;
        
rewrite ^/user/([^/]*)(/?)+$ /index.php?subaction=userinfo&user=$1 last;
        
rewrite ^/user/([^/]*)/page/([0-9]+)(/?)+$ /index.php?subaction=userinfo&user=$1&cstart=$2 last;
        
rewrite ^/user/([^/]*)/news(/?)+$ /index.php?subaction=allnews&user=$1 last;
        
rewrite ^/user/([^/]*)/news/page/([0-9]+)(/?)+$ /index.php?subaction=allnews&user=$1&cstart=$2 last;
        
rewrite ^/user/([^/]*)/news/rss.xml(/?)+$ /engine/rss.php?subaction=allnews&user=$1 last;
    }

    
location /lastnews/ {
        
rewrite ^/lastnews/(/?)+$ index.php?do=lastnews last;
        
rewrite ^/lastnews/page/([0-9]+)(/?)+$ /index.php?do=lastnews&cstart=$1 last;
    }

    
location /catalog/ {
        
rewrite ^/catalog/([^/]*)/rss.xml$ /engine/rss.php?catalog=$1 last;
        
rewrite ^/catalog/([^/]*)(/?)+$ /index.php?catalog=$1 last;
        
rewrite ^/catalog/([^/]*)/page/([0-9]+)(/?)+$ /index.php?catalog=$1&cstart=$2 last;
    }

    
location /newposts {
        
rewrite ^/newposts(/?)+$ /index.php?subaction=newposts last;
        
rewrite ^/newposts/page/([0-9]+)(/?)+$ /index.php?subaction=newposts&cstart=$1 last;
    }

    
location /favorites {
        
rewrite ^/favorites(/?)+$ /index.php?do=favorites last;
        
rewrite ^/favorites/page/([0-9]+)(/?)+$ /index.php?do=favorites&cstart=$1 last;
    }

    
location ~ \.(html|xml) {
        
rewrite "^/([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{2})/([0-9]{2})/page,([0-9]+),([0-9]+),(.*).html(/?)+$" /index.php?subaction=showfull&year=$1&month=$2&day=$3&news_page=$4&cstart=$5&news_name=$6 last;
        
rewrite "^/([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{2})/([0-9]{2})/page,([0-9]+),(.*).html(/?)+$" /index.php?subaction=showfull&year=$1&month=$2&day=$3&news_page=$4&news_name=$5 last;
        
rewrite "^/([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{2})/([0-9]{2})/print:page,([0-9]+),(.*).html(/?)+$" /engine/print.php?subaction=showfull&year=$1&month=$2&day=$3&news_page=$4&news_name=$5 last;
        
rewrite "^/([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{2})/([0-9]{2})/(.*).html(/?)+$" /index.php?subaction=showfull&year=$1&month=$2&day=$3&news_name=$4 last;
        
rewrite "^/([^.]+)/page,([0-9]+),([0-9]+),([0-9]+)-(.*).html(/?)+$" /index.php?newsid=$4&news_page=$2&cstart=$3 last;
        
rewrite "^/([^.]+)/page,([0-9]+),([0-9]+)-(.*).html(/?)+$" /index.php?newsid=$3&news_page=$2 last;
        
rewrite "^/([^.]+)/print:page,([0-9]+),([0-9]+)-(.*).html(/?)+$" /engine/print.php?news_page=$2&newsid=$3 last;
        
rewrite "^/([^.]+)/([0-9]+)-(.*).html(/?)+$" /index.php?newsid=$2 last;
        
rewrite "^/page,([0-9]+),([0-9]+),([0-9]+)-(.*).html(/?)+$" /index.php?newsid=$3&news_page=$1&cstart=$2 last;
        
rewrite "^/page,([0-9]+),([0-9]+)-(.*).html(/?)+$" /index.php?newsid=$2&news_page=$1 last;
        
rewrite "^/print:page,([0-9]+),([0-9]+)-(.*).html(/?)+$" /engine/print.php?news_page=$1&newsid=$2 last;
        
rewrite "^/([0-9]+)-(.*).html(/?)+$" /index.php?newsid=$1 last;
        
rewrite "^/static/(.*).html(/?)+$" /index.php?do=static&page=$1 last;
        
rewrite ^/rules.html$ /index.php?do=rules last;
        
rewrite ^/statistics.html$ /index.php?do=stats last;
        
rewrite ^/addnews.html$ /index.php?do=addnews last;
        
rewrite ^/([^.]+)/rss.xml$ /engine/rss.php?do=cat&category=$1 last;
        
rewrite ^/page,([0-9]+),([^/]+).html$ /index.php?do=static&page=$2&news_page=$1 last;
        
rewrite ^/print:([^/]+).html$ /engine/print.php?do=static&page=$1 last;
        
rewrite ^/rss.xml$ /engine/rss.php last;
        
rewrite ^/sitemap.xml$ /uploads/sitemap.xml last;
    }

    
location ~* \.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|ico|swf|css|js)$ {
        
expires             30d;
        
add_header          Cache-Control public;
    }

## There is an additional password to admin
    
location =/admin.php {
        
auth_basic            "closed section";
        
auth_basic_user_file  htpasswd;
        
fastcgi_pass   unix:/tmp/fastcgi.sock;
        
fastcgi_index  index.php;
        
fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include        
fastcgi_params;
    }

    
location ~ \.php$ {
        
fastcgi_pass   unix:/tmp/fastcgi.sock;
        
fastcgi_index  index.php;
        
fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include        
fastcgi_params;
    }

    
location ~ /\.ht {
        
deny  all;
    }

you can also port nginx to apache that should speed up things i i have read!
All depends on your resources.
Mine are limited so no apache.
So far so good tring to get mysql optimized now to use less resouces.