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NinjaCoder

Q: VNC From Windows to OS X Screen Sharing is Slow

I bought a Mac Mini and turned on Screen Sharing and added a password.
Then I opened forwarded port 5900 on my router so I could access it externally...

The problem is that it is amazingly slow. I even tried it on my WIFI Lan that it was connected to also and although that was the fastest it was still delayed and hard to use XCode...

Things I have tried.
First I tried Real VNC (Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows 7) and then I tried Mocha VNC (iPhone). I just downloaded Ultra VNC Viewer and that seems to be a little faster (Windows 7) but it is still too slow to use.

Another things is when I am trying to connect to my machine most VNC Viewers have options. Like VNC Viewer has "Format and Encoding" and Hextile is what I have it using... I wonder if any of the other options (ZRLE, Tight, Zlib(+xor), ZlibHex, RRE, CoRRE, Raw, Ultra, ZYWRLE) are faster

There are also options like "Use CopyRect encoding" checked "Use Cache Encoding" (unchecked) "Zip/Tight Compression" (checked with 6) and "Jpeg (Tight) - Quality:" (checked with 6)...

The other option I tried changing was Colors but only "Full Colors" seems to work... 256, 64, 8, 8 Dark Colors, 4 Grey Colors, Black & White seem to get me kicked off by the mac mini...

The next thing I did was I went to Display Settings on the mac and switched it from 1920x1080 to 800x600 and switched colors from Millions to Thousands...
This seemed to make it go a little faster but still not usable...

Also to note... My internet that my Mac Mini is on is not slow - Right now I am downloading the iPhone SDK and getting 600+kbps - that should be fast enough to do remote stuff...

Mac Mini, Windows Vista

Posted on Apr 5, 2009 10:26 PM

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Q: VNC From Windows to OS X Screen Sharing is Slow

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  • by BobHarris,Helpful

    BobHarris BobHarris Apr 6, 2009 5:34 AM in response to NinjaCoder
    Level 6 (19,628 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 6, 2009 5:34 AM in response to NinjaCoder
    Try installing the Vine Server (aka OSXvnc) a free download
    <http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/16699>

    The Mac OS X built-in VNC server works very well with the Mac OS X Screen Sharing application, however, I have found it does not play all that nice with every VNC client in the world.

    However, the Vine Server has been around for a long time, works very well, uses the TightVNC protocols, and gives very good performance. I still use the Vine Server on my Mom's iMac connecting with my client configured for reduced colors and I get very good performance across slow internet connections.

    Give the Vine Server a try. You can choose to run it as port 5900, or run it in parallel with the Mac OS X VNC server by configuring the Vine Server for port 5901 (or any port you want).