Mitchell Hashimoto

Basically, when you press a letter on your keyboard, how long it takes for the photons to appear on the screen. Another one is sort of rendering speed. What frame rate can you maintain while you're, say, scrolling through a Vim file or something? And that's slightly different from the speed it can read. And there's a couple more, but there's so many different dimensions here to speed.

Basically, when you press a letter on your keyboard, how long it takes for the photons to appear on the screen. Another one is sort of rendering speed. What frame rate can you maintain while you're, say, scrolling through a Vim file or something? And that's slightly different from the speed it can read. And there's a couple more, but there's so many different dimensions here to speed.

And we've tried to really be, like I said, not necessarily the best, but in the inarguable class of the best for every one of these categories.

And we've tried to really be, like I said, not necessarily the best, but in the inarguable class of the best for every one of these categories.

Yeah, there's, again, because there's so many dimensions to speed, there's also dimensions to how you do it. And one of the ways is being a native application, taking advantage of things that are hard to take advantage if you're not. So, for example, we spent a lot of time coming down to really the instruction level architecture of the program.

Yeah, there's, again, because there's so many dimensions to speed, there's also dimensions to how you do it. And one of the ways is being a native application, taking advantage of things that are hard to take advantage if you're not. So, for example, we spent a lot of time coming down to really the instruction level architecture of the program.

And if you're on a Mac computer, a new Apple Silicon Mac computer, we take advantage of literal ARM instructions that aren't available elsewhere to make things faster. Likewise on Intel, I'm talking mostly about SIMD work to make things read speeds and parsing speeds very fast. But from the rendering side, we use Metal directly on macOS. We use OpenGL on Linux.

And if you're on a Mac computer, a new Apple Silicon Mac computer, we take advantage of literal ARM instructions that aren't available elsewhere to make things faster. Likewise on Intel, I'm talking mostly about SIMD work to make things read speeds and parsing speeds very fast. But from the rendering side, we use Metal directly on macOS. We use OpenGL on Linux.

The Metal part is really important on macOS because there's very, very few terminals that use Metal. iTerm supports Metal, but disables it if you use ligatures, for example. I think that I don't, It's either number one or number two. I think Ghosty is the only terminal that has a pure metal renderer that also supports ligatures.

The Metal part is really important on macOS because there's very, very few terminals that use Metal. iTerm supports Metal, but disables it if you use ligatures, for example. I think that I don't, It's either number one or number two. I think Ghosty is the only terminal that has a pure metal renderer that also supports ligatures.

And that's just important because by using OpenGL on metal, there is an overhead because Apple does not natively support OpenGL. So what it's doing is translating that to metal. So there is an overhead. And you can actually notice that if you do renderer speeds between Alacrity and Ghosty, you get about a 10% frame rate.

And that's just important because by using OpenGL on metal, there is an overhead because Apple does not natively support OpenGL. So what it's doing is translating that to metal. So there is an overhead. And you can actually notice that if you do renderer speeds between Alacrity and Ghosty, you get about a 10% frame rate.

difference on the same workload with Ghosty under basic load, not even heavy load. And so those are just a couple examples of the things that we're looking into.

difference on the same workload with Ghosty under basic load, not even heavy load. And so those are just a couple examples of the things that we're looking into.

Right. I do want to put an asterisk on that though. It's the terminal as it is, but supporting all of the most modern features that have been created And I think that, you know, my bias, but Ghosty is the most feature rich in terms of terminal specifications that, you know, in terms of Kitty image protocol that Kitty defined and some other things that are all over.

Right. I do want to put an asterisk on that though. It's the terminal as it is, but supporting all of the most modern features that have been created And I think that, you know, my bias, but Ghosty is the most feature rich in terms of terminal specifications that, you know, in terms of Kitty image protocol that Kitty defined and some other things that are all over.

And we could talk about that later. But even though it's the best existing, I think we bring together all of the most modern things as well.

And we could talk about that later. But even though it's the best existing, I think we bring together all of the most modern things as well.

Yeah. I mean, I think that's exactly right. That's the way I would look at it. The question I've asked people is when they're not using a terminal for something, especially if it's something that's very terminal-esque. So for example, the people I like talking to the most right now are people that use something like MacVim or NeoVim in a separate native application or something like that.

Yeah. I mean, I think that's exactly right. That's the way I would look at it. The question I've asked people is when they're not using a terminal for something, especially if it's something that's very terminal-esque. So for example, the people I like talking to the most right now are people that use something like MacVim or NeoVim in a separate native application or something like that.