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I watched the video on the home page and thought it is weird that they spend an inordinate amount of time on frame rate. Who picks an editor based on frame rate

I watched the video on the home page and thought it is weird that they spend an inordinate amount of time on frame rate. Who picks an editor based on frame rate? If you want to talk about perf in the context of a text editor show me how big of a file you can load--especially if the file has no line breaks. Emacs has trouble here. If you load a minified js file it slows to a crawl especially if syntax highlighting is on. Also show me how fast the start up time is. This is another area where Emacs does not do well. So Zed is available on Windows--but only if you have a x64 processor. Lots of people run Windows on Arm64 and I don't see any mention of Arm64. This is where the puck is heading. Also noticed Emacs key binding is in beta still.

STKFLT 11mo ago
High frame rates (low frame times, really) are essential to responsiveness which, for those who appreciate it, is going to make much more of a difference day to day than the odd hiccup opening a large file (not that zed does have that issue, I wouldn't know as I haven't tried opening something huge).
- breadwinner 11mo ago
  That's an interesting take. For whatever reason, frame rate is not one of my complaints about existing editors such as Emacs, VS Code, etc.
  - array_key_first 11mo ago
    Latency often is for VS Code - that's frame rate. Your editor taking 1s to respond to inputs is not normal.
- adastra22 11mo ago
  This is one of those things that make me question whether I experience the world fundamentally differently than many of you. I have never, ever felt “latency” in editor UI. Any editor UI. It’s editing text for Pete’s sake. I can only type so fast, or read so fast.
  - sushisource 11mo ago
    You probably do. Many people just never notice that. It's not about typing or reading fast either, it's just about how it feels. Typing into something with shitty latency feels like dragging my fingernails across a chalkboard. It's the same with high dpi monitors. Some people (me included) are driven absolutely insane by the font rendering on low density monitors, and other people don't even notice a difference. Honestly, consider yourself blessed. One less thing in the world to annoy you.
    - adastra22 11mo ago
      Yes, I can perceive that latency, if I am actively looking for it. No, it has absolutely no effect whatsoever on my ability to work. The latency is far, far below what could possibly affect neural feedback loops, even on the slowest editors. And it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Low-dpi font rendering also isn’t an issue for me, unless it is so bad as to be illegible (which no modern system is). We really do perceive things differently.
  - rglynn 11mo ago
    Have you ever used a display running over 60hz refresh rate?
    - adastra22 11mo ago
      Has it ever impacted your ability to read, or type?
- 1718627440 11mo ago
  It's expected for editors to have non-perceivable latency. It's just text, how hard can it be.
jay_kyburz 11mo ago
Yeah, Kate will choke on a large single line file. Its one of the very few issues I bump into from time to time.
scuff3d 11mo ago
This always makes me laugh. The editor was barely announced two years ago. They've built it from the ground up with native support now for three different operating systems. They're experimenting with some cool new features, and even though I don't care about it I've heard their AI integration is pretty damn good. But waaaaah they don't support a processor that accounts for probably less then 10% of Windows Machines
- breadwinner 11mo ago
  Ubiquity is pretty important when you're going to invest in learning a new editor. This is one of the advantages of vim for example. It is available everywhere... linux, windows, terminal, gui, etc.
  - scuff3d 11mo ago
    You mean... like a GUI editor that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux?
poly2it 11mo ago
It's not just frame rate, but also input delay. If you're using Visual Studio Code, you might be used to waiting 100 ms for a character you typed to appear. My personal workflow is based on Kitty and Neovim, which I've configured so that it can launch within 20 ms. Working without any input delay allows me to explore and edit projects at typing speed. As such, even tiny delays really bother me and make me lose my flow. I would believe Zed's focus on performance is motivated similarly. Also, I do not believe Windows on Arm64 is a very large demographic? Especially for developers, unless they're specifically into that platform.
- breadwinner 11mo ago
  It is 18% according to this story: https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/projections-show-that-arm-cpus-will-power-40-percent-of-notebooks-sold-in-2029 https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/projections-show-that-a...
  - kbolino 11mo ago
    Most of that is macOS and ChromeOS, not Windows.
    - jsheard 11mo ago
      Yeah. The Steam survey isn't a perfect sample since it's skewed towards gamers, but that currently shows just 0.08% of Windows users are on ARM, while 81.5% of Mac users are on ARM.
      - breadwinner 11mo ago
        That may be true if you're looking at all windows computers in existence. If you look at new laptops being sold you see different numbers. As of 2025, Arm processors hold about 13% to 20% of the market share for new Windows laptops. This is important because these are the people who are more likely to download and install your software.
- marcosdumay 11mo ago
bschwindHN 11mo ago
> Who picks an editor based on frame rate? Me! Frame rate and input latency are very important for a tool I use for hours every day. Obviously that's not the only feature I look for in an editor but if an editor _doesn't_ have it, I skip it. I also try to work on devices with 120Hz displays and above these days.
- 1718627440 11mo ago
  I think the claim is more that an editor is supposed to have an arbitrary good frame rate.

STKFLT 11mo ago

High frame rates (low frame times, really) are essential to responsiveness which, for those who appreciate it, is going to make much more of a difference day to day than the odd hiccup opening a large file (not that zed does have that issue, I wouldn't know as I haven't tried opening something huge).

breadwinner 11mo ago
That's an interesting take. For whatever reason, frame rate is not one of my complaints about existing editors such as Emacs, VS Code, etc.
- array_key_first 11mo ago
  Latency often is for VS Code - that's frame rate. Your editor taking 1s to respond to inputs is not normal.
adastra22 11mo ago
This is one of those things that make me question whether I experience the world fundamentally differently than many of you. I have never, ever felt “latency” in editor UI. Any editor UI. It’s editing text for Pete’s sake. I can only type so fast, or read so fast.
- sushisource 11mo ago
  You probably do. Many people just never notice that. It's not about typing or reading fast either, it's just about how it feels. Typing into something with shitty latency feels like dragging my fingernails across a chalkboard. It's the same with high dpi monitors. Some people (me included) are driven absolutely insane by the font rendering on low density monitors, and other people don't even notice a difference. Honestly, consider yourself blessed. One less thing in the world to annoy you.
  - adastra22 11mo ago
    Yes, I can perceive that latency, if I am actively looking for it. No, it has absolutely no effect whatsoever on my ability to work. The latency is far, far below what could possibly affect neural feedback loops, even on the slowest editors. And it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Low-dpi font rendering also isn’t an issue for me, unless it is so bad as to be illegible (which no modern system is). We really do perceive things differently.
- rglynn 11mo ago
  Have you ever used a display running over 60hz refresh rate?
  - adastra22 11mo ago
    Has it ever impacted your ability to read, or type?
1718627440 11mo ago
It's expected for editors to have non-perceivable latency. It's just text, how hard can it be.

jay_kyburz 11mo ago

Yeah, Kate will choke on a large single line file. Its one of the very few issues I bump into from time to time.

scuff3d 11mo ago

This always makes me laugh. The editor was barely announced two years ago. They've built it from the ground up with native support now for three different operating systems. They're experimenting with some cool new features, and even though I don't care about it I've heard their AI integration is pretty damn good. But waaaaah they don't support a processor that accounts for probably less then 10% of Windows Machines

breadwinner 11mo ago
Ubiquity is pretty important when you're going to invest in learning a new editor. This is one of the advantages of vim for example. It is available everywhere... linux, windows, terminal, gui, etc.
- scuff3d 11mo ago
  You mean... like a GUI editor that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux?

poly2it 11mo ago

It's not just frame rate, but also input delay. If you're using Visual Studio Code, you might be used to waiting 100 ms for a character you typed to appear. My personal workflow is based on Kitty and Neovim, which I've configured so that it can launch within 20 ms. Working without any input delay allows me to explore and edit projects at typing speed. As such, even tiny delays really bother me and make me lose my flow. I would believe Zed's focus on performance is motivated similarly. Also, I do not believe Windows on Arm64 is a very large demographic? Especially for developers, unless they're specifically into that platform.

breadwinner 11mo ago
It is 18% according to this story: https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/projections-show-that-arm-cpus-will-power-40-percent-of-notebooks-sold-in-2029 https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/projections-show-that-a...
- kbolino 11mo ago
  Most of that is macOS and ChromeOS, not Windows.
  - jsheard 11mo ago
    Yeah. The Steam survey isn't a perfect sample since it's skewed towards gamers, but that currently shows just 0.08% of Windows users are on ARM, while 81.5% of Mac users are on ARM.
    - breadwinner 11mo ago
      That may be true if you're looking at all windows computers in existence. If you look at new laptops being sold you see different numbers. As of 2025, Arm processors hold about 13% to 20% of the market share for new Windows laptops. This is important because these are the people who are more likely to download and install your software.
marcosdumay 11mo ago

bschwindHN 11mo ago

> Who picks an editor based on frame rate? Me! Frame rate and input latency are very important for a tool I use for hours every day. Obviously that's not the only feature I look for in an editor but if an editor _doesn't_ have it, I skip it. I also try to work on devices with 120Hz displays and above these days.

1718627440 11mo ago
I think the claim is more that an editor is supposed to have an arbitrary good frame rate.