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Whenever I'm in vimdiff mode, my PuTTY session slows down considerably. This is especially noticeable when I try to scroll down many lines by keeping j pressed.

  1. Why is it so slow in comparison to regular Vim running under vsplit? I realize it matches across lines and color-highlights the differences, but does that account for all the speed differences?
  2. What can I do about it? I would like to keep line matches across files (and color highlighting as well). What settings can I change to help speed up the performance of my vimdiff utility?
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Simple, yet probably effective: page forward/back with ^F and ^B, respectively. Depending on your terminal mode, each jcan force an entire screen re-paint. – msw Sep 9 '10 at 12:23
@msw : That's my current workaround, but it's still quite laggy in vimdiff mode. – Zaid Sep 9 '10 at 12:52
How big are the files? – Kevin M Sep 9 '10 at 16:33
@Kevin M : Not that big, 3000 lines max. – Zaid Sep 9 '10 at 21:19

1 Answer

up vote 3 down vote accepted

Do you have SSH compression enabled? This kind of scrolling and highlighting generates a whole lot of redundant terminal traffic; compression makes a huge difference over a remote link.

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It could very well be the reason. How do I disable/enable SSH compression? – Zaid Oct 3 '10 at 15:28
PuTTY's SSH panel has a "Enable compression" checkbox. – Piet Delport Oct 3 '10 at 18:00
Feels much faster after enabling compression... Thanks! – Zaid Oct 5 '10 at 13:09

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