urxvt + nload = flicker

[Marc Lehmann]

On Sun, Nov 18, 2007 at 01:27:58PM +0100, Bart Van Loon <bart at inGen.be> wrote:
> one thing keeps on bugging me though. although the feature list states
> ``Completely flicker-free.'', whenever I use nload, urxvt flickers at
> every screen redraw of nload. I don't get this when I start up an xterm
> an run nload from there.

Likely nload clears the screen, then redraws it. Urxvt does not introduce
flickering there, it only displays the screen contents correctly (i.e. the
flickering is likely caused by nload not urxvt).

xterm might react slower and thus not show the cleared screen (apart
from xterm being indeed much slower than urxvt, this depends on a lot of
factors such as your machine speed, of course).

Looking at nload, it indeed clears the screen, and urxvt can do nothing
about that. I assure you the screen clearing is done in a completely
flicker-free way, however :->

> does anybody here have a clue what's going on? is this normal behaviour,
> or the result of a setting I might have?

urxvt only displays what applications tell it to. when an application
clears the screen, then draws something, then urxvt shows both, in a
flicker-free way.

compare it to watching a movie with mplayer. mpalyer might be
flicker-free, but when the movie itself flickers, you get flickering.

-- 
                The choice of a       Deliantra, the free code+content MORPG
      -----==-     _GNU_              http://www.deliantra.net
      ----==-- _       generation
      ---==---(_)__  __ ____  __      Marc Lehmann
      --==---/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ /      pcg at goof.com
      -=====/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\