5 ms·

Wayland is a protocol - not an implementation. It tries to minify latency by merging together some of the components X11 had and tries to do this in a slim and

Wayland is a protocol - not an implementation. It tries to minify latency by merging together some of the components X11 had and tries to do this in a slim and faster way eliminating "design flaws". The implementation of the protocol may differ, but I know for example MUTTER, that is used in GNOME (https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter) This article has nice and not too complex visualisations and explanations: https://www.secjuice.com/wayland-vs-xorg/ https://www.secjuice.com/wayland-vs-xorg/

sprash 5y ago
> It tries to minify latency Quiet the opposite. Tearfree rendering, forced vsync and the completely opaque way of interacting with graphics memory in order to fulfill the "every frame is perfect" philosophy means Wayland is optimized for all kinds of things (mainly to give involved consulting firms some lucrative gigs) but certainly not latency.
- sandreas 5y ago
  Could you give more details on that? This sounds like Wayland is not your favourite...
  - sprash 5y ago
    I discussed this in past comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29017674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29017674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29017940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29017940
    - sandreas 5y ago
      Thank you. This is something I will definetely investigate further :-)
- Seirdy 5y ago
  It's more nuanced than that. If your goal is to have a desktop without screen tearing, you will beed a compositor. Wayland will do better at minifying latency than an X11 compositor due to having better frame scheduling. This is especially pronounced on very low-end ARM devices like the Pinebook that experience lag on DWM but are incredibly snappy under Sway. If you are fine with visual glitches like screen tearing due to e.g. a lack of vsync then X might have less latency.
  - sprash 5y ago
    > If you are fine with visual glitches There are cases where tearing is extremely distracting, like playing videos or scrolling in the browser. There are cases where tearing will not be noticed at all but low latency might be beneficial, e.g. when you only have small areas of the screen that are updated, like moving the mouse cursor or editing text. And there are cases where it is a user preference, e.g. Games (Many people play competitive FPS Games without vsync whereas scrolling without vsync in strategy games will be very distracting). The point is to give the user a choice when there is a trade-off. The trade-off here is vsync vs. low latency. Wayland makes the choice for you. On X11 each application can do what makes sense for that particular use case and on top of that the compositor can be turned off, on or even be replaced at runtime without affecting running programs. X11 is superior technology in every way if you ask me.
    - dkersten 5y ago
      From a purely practical point of view, for me personally, I have a laptop where no matter what I tried, with X I got insane constant screen tearing. I tried with and without compositors, different configuration, different drivers. Nothing worked for me. I tried wayland and its been running silky smooth without any tearing whatsoever. So, from a personal practical perspective, whatever Wayland does has worked for me, while X11's "superior technology" has completely failed me, on that laptop.
      - sprash 5y ago
        On a technical/conceptual level X11 can potentially be the best of both worlds and Wayland can't. In practice drivers and programs have bugs, sure. But that can not be blamed on X11 as protocol/API.

sprash 5y ago

> It tries to minify latency Quiet the opposite. Tearfree rendering, forced vsync and the completely opaque way of interacting with graphics memory in order to fulfill the "every frame is perfect" philosophy means Wayland is optimized for all kinds of things (mainly to give involved consulting firms some lucrative gigs) but certainly not latency.

sandreas 5y ago
Could you give more details on that? This sounds like Wayland is not your favourite...
- sprash 5y ago
  I discussed this in past comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29017674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29017674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29017940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29017940
  - sandreas 5y ago
    Thank you. This is something I will definetely investigate further :-)
Seirdy 5y ago
It's more nuanced than that. If your goal is to have a desktop without screen tearing, you will beed a compositor. Wayland will do better at minifying latency than an X11 compositor due to having better frame scheduling. This is especially pronounced on very low-end ARM devices like the Pinebook that experience lag on DWM but are incredibly snappy under Sway. If you are fine with visual glitches like screen tearing due to e.g. a lack of vsync then X might have less latency.
- sprash 5y ago
  > If you are fine with visual glitches There are cases where tearing is extremely distracting, like playing videos or scrolling in the browser. There are cases where tearing will not be noticed at all but low latency might be beneficial, e.g. when you only have small areas of the screen that are updated, like moving the mouse cursor or editing text. And there are cases where it is a user preference, e.g. Games (Many people play competitive FPS Games without vsync whereas scrolling without vsync in strategy games will be very distracting). The point is to give the user a choice when there is a trade-off. The trade-off here is vsync vs. low latency. Wayland makes the choice for you. On X11 each application can do what makes sense for that particular use case and on top of that the compositor can be turned off, on or even be replaced at runtime without affecting running programs. X11 is superior technology in every way if you ask me.
  - dkersten 5y ago
    From a purely practical point of view, for me personally, I have a laptop where no matter what I tried, with X I got insane constant screen tearing. I tried with and without compositors, different configuration, different drivers. Nothing worked for me. I tried wayland and its been running silky smooth without any tearing whatsoever. So, from a personal practical perspective, whatever Wayland does has worked for me, while X11's "superior technology" has completely failed me, on that laptop.
    - sprash 5y ago
      On a technical/conceptual level X11 can potentially be the best of both worlds and Wayland can't. In practice drivers and programs have bugs, sure. But that can not be blamed on X11 as protocol/API.