You can reproduce the performance fall-off by using a slow network connection, e.g. via IPsec and DSL and public Internet to a remote site. The "small numbers" case was taken using a local network connection from one Linux PC to another. Ping shows a round-trip time of 0.3ms for this local connection.
Here is the same sample session as above, now using the IPsec connection between my office and my home PC (ping: 20ms): 253x50: real 0m0.037s user 0m0.000s sys 0m0.011s 254x50: real 0m0.032s user 0m0.000s sys 0m0.009s 255x50: real 0m0.032s user 0m0.004s sys 0m0.007s 256x50: real 0m27.316s user 0m0.018s sys 0m0.000s 257x50: real 0m28.837s user 0m0.008s sys 0m0.012s 258x50: real 0m29.157s user 0m0.000s sys 0m0.017s If I use an xfce4-terminal instead of xterm, then the numbers for 253x50 and 258x50 and in between are the same as for xterm with 255x50. Same network connection, of course. xfce4-terminal does not show the performance fall-off as xterm. Regards Harri
