Re: emacs 23 display slow over cable modem

[Daniel Pittman]

"Strozzi, David J." <strozzi2@llnl.gov> writes:

> I compiled emacs 23.2.1 in my home dir on a linux cluster (amd 64 chips) at
> work.  I connect over VPN from home, where I have a cable modem.  For a long
> time, emacs 21.4 *run as an xwindows app* (not "emacs -nw" living in a
> terminal) has performed fine - after it starts (which may take some time),
> typing, switching buffers, etc is pretty instant.  But, doing the same thing
> in 23.2 gives much slower response.  Both work fine in -nw mode, but there
> are some reasons (keyboard mappings, multi-windows, mouse) why I like the
> full xwin app.  From my office, both xwin's run very fast.
>
> Any ideas on why?

At a guess, because Emacs 23 uses Xft for font rendering, which provides nice
anti-aliased display, while Emacs 21 uses only X core fonts.

Theoretically the X server caching and client libraries make Xft reasonably
efficient over long, thin pipes, but practically it is optimized on the
assumption that people basically don't do this any more.

If you can live without the better fonts you can still turn on the core font
backend after install[1] and just use that.

Regards,
        Daniel

Footnotes: 
[1]  Read the manual, I don't actually know how, I fear. :)

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