high-latency, high-bandwidth link => slow startup

[Lars Clausen <lrclause@cs.uiuc.edu>]

Hi!

I'm currently using emacs across the Atlantic on a fairly high-bandwidth
line (cablemodem <-> Tn).  My latency is high (~150msec ping fairly
constantly).  I find that while editing is good (sometimes with skipping,
but good enough for e.g. writing mail), the startup time is horrible.  It
can take several minutes to start up Emacs + Gnus, whereas locally it takes
a matter of seconds, and even on a text-only terminal of equivalent latency
and lower bandwidth is it much faster.  What is it about remote X that
makes the startup so slow?  Can Emacs be tweaked to work better in
high-bandwidth/high-latency situations (which I would think would become
more common as more people get high-bandwidth connections and remote use
becomes more common)?  I'm not doing graphics-heavy stuff, maybe font
loading is a problem?

Thanks in advance,
-Lars

-- 
Lars Clausen (http://shasta.cs.uiuc.edu/~lrclause)| Hårdgrim of Numenor
"I do not agree with a word that you say, but I   |----------------------------
will defend to the death your right to say it."   | Where are we going, and
    --Evelyn Beatrice Hall paraphrasing Voltaire  | what's with the handbasket?