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tutfbhuf | 1 year ago

Just recently, I did a terminal latency test with Typometer for the following terminals, sorted by lowest latency:

  xterm (389-1) 
  alacritty (0.13.1-1)
  kitty-tuned (0.31.0-1)
  zutty (0.14-2)
  st (master 95f22c5)
  urxvt (9.31-4)
  konsole (24.02.0-1)
  kitty (0.31.0-1)
  wezterm (20230712.072601)
  gnome-terminal (3.50.1-1)
  xfce4-terminal (1.1.1-2)
  terminator (2.1.3-3)
  tilix (1.9.6-3)
  hyper (v3.4.1)
I only tested for software latency (monitor, keyboard and other hardware latency is not included in Typometer benchmarks). I ran the test on Arch Linux with Xorg + bswpwm without compositor. You can find the full results on by blog https://beuke.org/terminal-latency/.

discuss

order

forgotpwd16|1 year ago

Compared to a similar 6yo [1] and 3yo[2] (by zutty maker) comparisons, VTE terminals still (at least pre-46) bad in latency front. (They're as high as VS Code based beuke article.) Xterm still rules it. (Pointed in [2], this is due to direct rendering via Xlib which comes with the downside of having poor throughput.) Alacritty significantly improved, Konsole got worse. About Alacritty, it's pointed in [2], there were various opened tickets related to its poor performance and wasn't an easy to solve problem. So kudos to Alacritty devs for succeeding and GNOME devs for improving in the new version.

Alacritty, Kitty, Zutty, GNOME, others, quite a rejuvenation in terminal development.

[1]: https://lwn.net/Articles/751763/

[2]: https://tomscii.sig7.se/2021/01/Typing-latency-of-Zutty

snvzz|1 year ago

>However, if we custom-tune the settings for the lowest latency possible I chose minlatency = 0 and maxlatency = 1 then we have a new winner. Applying this custom tuning results in an average latency of 5.2 ms, which is 0.1 ms lower than xterm, and that’s with having a much more sane terminal without legacy cruft.

But... that max column. It hurts.

aembleton|1 year ago

Your blog post is from before Gnome 46 was released. It might be worth trying again to see if you see the improvements that the article describes.

Vecr|1 year ago

Huh, the devs really weren't lying, Alacritty really got better on the latency front. I started using it for supposed better security than Xterm, but at the time I think it was quite a lot worse on latency, but the throughput was way better.

clktmr|1 year ago

Very interesting! I would propose to add 'foot' to the list, which is also very performance oriented.

SubiculumCode|1 year ago

Here I was hoping that the Budgie default tilix was on the good end of this list.

edit: More to the point though, is there much reason to go to kitty or alacrity?

Xiol32|1 year ago

Finding it really hard to get off Tilix myself.

Alacritty feels fast but they refuse to add support for tabs or tiling. They just say to go use tmux but that isn't the answer at all.

Kitty is quite nice but if you SSH into machines a lot, all hell breaks loose if they don't have the kitty terminfo files installed, and doing that isn't always possible. You can override TERM, but honestly don't have the patience for it.

kaba0|1 year ago

Does it take into account Wayland, and its double-buffered nature (unless you specifically opt for disabling v-sync, see the presentation protocol)?

Hendrikto|1 year ago

> I ran the test on Arch Linux with Xorg

Jonnax|1 year ago

If the 16ms latency at 60hz bothers you.

Then get a 120hz display which has 8ms latency.

Or there's 240hz 4k displays with 4ms

If that's not enough then there's 1080p esport monitors with 540hz so 1.85ms.

christophilus|1 year ago

I'd be curious how Foot holds up. In my subjective experience, it feels the least laggy when I use neovim.

ykonstant|1 year ago

What is kitty-tuned? Quick google didn't give useful info.