Re: Xfree86 is slow! with software like MATLAB

[Harold L Hunt II <huntharo at msu dot edu>]

Mark,

Using the default -multiwindow mode (with the integrated window manager) 
is slower than all of the other modes.

You can run XWin from startxwin.bat instead with:

XWin -rootless

Then you need to start a window manager like 'twm':

run twm


Cygwin/XFree86 works by drawing to an offscreen framebuffer (using the 
primary CPU), then transferring updated portions of the offscreen 
framebuffer to the screen.  Work has begun, and is also essentially 
stalled, on the "Native GDI" engine for Cygwin/XFree86 that translates 
each X graphics call to a GDI graphics call; this has the advantage of 
utilizing the power of the graphics processing unit (GPU).  Exceed and 
possibly other commercial X Servers do something similar to the Native 
GDI engine and are thus faster.

On a side note, the speed of your graphics card and the quality of its 
drivers are very important for the performance of Cygwin/XFree86.  A two 
or three year old ATI or NVIDIA PCI (AGP is better) graphics card will 
be substantially faster than a 5 year old PCI graphics card from a 
no-name vendor.  On the other hand, I use a 5 year old Diamond PCI 
graphics card and it works just fine.

That's about it.

Harold

Mark Jones wrote:
> I have tried using XFree86 (linux and cygwin) for Cygwin's XFree86 and 
> Linux's XFree86 and have found it to be extremely slow at refreshing the 
> screen making it nearly impossible to use MATLAB's editor reasonably.  
> However, using a MS Windows emulator like Xoftware or Hummingbird's 
> Exceed provides extremely fast response such that it is useable with 
> various programs including MATLAB.  Is there a valid reason for this?  
> Is it being addressed?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mark