6 ms·

In my limited experience, rendering vector fonts is among the slowest parts of rendering text in a terminal. The difference between an xterm with a TrueType or

by delan 11y ago

In my limited experience, rendering vector fonts is among the slowest parts of rendering text in a terminal. The difference between an xterm with a TrueType or OpenType font and an xterm with a PCF is noticeable.

pdkl95 11y ago
This can make a huge difference. It can easily be worth the performance benefit to find a well-designed bitmap font[1]. I also highly recommend using urxvt[2], which not only has very fast rendering and support for a lot of modern features, it has a few settings you enable that specifically address the too-much-scrolling speed issue. From urxvt(1): jumpScroll: boolean [...] specify that jump scrolling should be used. When receiving lots of lines, urxvt will only scroll once a whole screen height of lines has been read, resulting in fewer updates while still displaying every received line [...] skipScroll: boolean [...] specify that skip scrolling should be used. When receiving lots of lines, urxvt will only scroll once in a while (around 60 times per second), resulting in far fewer updates. This can result in urxvt not ever displaying some of the lines it receives [...] These options can completely fix the scrolling lag problem. [1] e.g. http://terminus-font.sourceforge.net/ http://terminus-font.sourceforge.net/ [2] http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/rxvt-unicode.html http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/rxvt-unicode.html
- david-given 11y ago
  I use urxvt with Terminus. It's great. ...did you know that it supports rendering italics? Not particularly well, mind, especially with bitmap fonts, but it's there: https://goo.gl/photos/pJtpccV8GX9QFkhn6 https://goo.gl/photos/pJtpccV8GX9QFkhn6
- userbinator 11y ago
  I prefer the standard IBM VGA font for its readability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Codepage-437.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Codepage-437.png The standard X terminal fonts ("fixed") are pretty good for other sizes, although I've fixed mine with a slashed zero: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_(typeface) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_(typeface)
- alyandon 11y ago
  In case anyone is really interested in seeing some actual numbers. On my system, using the default system Monospace 11 font: ls -lR / in urxvt terminal window - 16 s vs ls -lR / in gnome-terminal window - 3m17s ls was run several times to make sure all information was cached. Same font, same window size, etc.

by delan 11y ago

pdkl95 11y ago

This can make a huge difference. It can easily be worth the performance benefit to find a well-designed bitmap font[1]. I also highly recommend using urxvt[2], which not only has very fast rendering and support for a lot of modern features, it has a few settings you enable that specifically address the too-much-scrolling speed issue. From urxvt(1): jumpScroll: boolean [...] specify that jump scrolling should be used. When receiving lots of lines, urxvt will only scroll once a whole screen height of lines has been read, resulting in fewer updates while still displaying every received line [...] skipScroll: boolean [...] specify that skip scrolling should be used. When receiving lots of lines, urxvt will only scroll once in a while (around 60 times per second), resulting in far fewer updates. This can result in urxvt not ever displaying some of the lines it receives [...] These options can completely fix the scrolling lag problem. [1] e.g. http://terminus-font.sourceforge.net/ http://terminus-font.sourceforge.net/ [2] http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/rxvt-unicode.html http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/rxvt-unicode.html

david-given 11y ago
I use urxvt with Terminus. It's great. ...did you know that it supports rendering italics? Not particularly well, mind, especially with bitmap fonts, but it's there: https://goo.gl/photos/pJtpccV8GX9QFkhn6 https://goo.gl/photos/pJtpccV8GX9QFkhn6
userbinator 11y ago
I prefer the standard IBM VGA font for its readability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Codepage-437.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Codepage-437.png The standard X terminal fonts ("fixed") are pretty good for other sizes, although I've fixed mine with a slashed zero: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_(typeface) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_(typeface)
alyandon 11y ago
In case anyone is really interested in seeing some actual numbers. On my system, using the default system Monospace 11 font: ls -lR / in urxvt terminal window - 16 s vs ls -lR / in gnome-terminal window - 3m17s ls was run several times to make sure all information was cached. Same font, same window size, etc.