VNC performance issues; is Apple slow, is Apple Remote Desktop better?

I have a five year old G4/867 at home and a four year old G4/800MHz at work. Both running 10.4.7. I have DSL at home, advertised 192kBytes/sec upload and 112kBytes/sec download. Probably get about 70% of that in real life.

I tunnel VNC from work (CotVNC client) to my home computer over a secure shell session using port tunneling. Have never tried the reverse direction. At home, I just have the ARD service in sys prefs sharing enabled (with appropriate changes in sys prefs sharing ARD access privileges), and added vnc firewall setting in sys prefs sharing as well. My screen at home is 17" monitor, 1280x1024, set to thousands of colors (not millions - seems like my experience has been that more color resolution means more bits per pixel and that will slow you down).

So it does take a bit of time to repaint the remote (home) screen on my local (work) display. However, I wouldn't call it so slow as to be unusable. Just watched my home computer screen desktop picture change a couple of times, the (home) clock in the menubar took ~13-14sec to update (repaint) at picture change. With nothing happening, it updated about every 1-2sec. Document edits in progress was something inbetween.

I would first try reducing your color resolution from millions to thousands if it is not already there. You might also want to check your internet connection throughput, by either visiting a broadband speed test site or by, in Terminal.app, scp'ing a large file to/from work from/to home to check your upload and download throughputs.

Have never used ARD so can't address that.

2001 Quicksilver G4 (M8360LL/A) Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Hi Mike:

This is reduced on my home computer, the one that I am vnc'ing into from work, so I guess that would be considered the server side.

I reduce the color resolution from sys prefs' "Display" panel. Frankly, I can't tell the difference between thousands and millions, anyways. Also, I'm not sure where this "maxdepth bits" thing you speak of is. My work computer, from where I vnc into my home computer, is still set to millions (from sys prefs --> Display")

Did I see or read somewhere you are using osxvnc on the remote side (maybe over in the unix forum)? For what it's worth, I now remember several years ago trying to use osxvnc on the server side so I could vnc between these same two computers. At the time, I was trying to go from home to work. I was still tunneling the ports over ssh (only way I could get through work's firewall, and a good practice anyways). I can't remember what I was using as the vnc client, all I know is that it was NOT CotVNC. But it was osxvnc as the vnc server application at work. At the time my DSL connection was 256kbps upload and download. It was torturously slow, essentiallly unusable.

I might also try, if I were you, removing all remnants of osxvnc and just try using the built-in stuff that already exists on your Mac as OEM, and see how it works for you. Can't hurt...

To do that, on the remote side (your work side), I think I'd still try thousands of colors versus millions of colors, because that's like 16-bit color versus 32-bit color (I think), and if I got half a clue, that 16 or 32 bits per pixel is what has to be sent across your cable connection so the remote monitor screen is painted on your local display.

Next, in work's system preferences, go to "Sharing." Click on the "Services" tab. Enable "Apple Remote Desktop." Now click on "Access Privileges..." and set up whatever privileges you want for users vnc'ing into user accounts on your work computer and check the "VNC viewers may control screen" button. The password you specify there is the same password you will use in CotVNC on the client program at your home computer. All this stuff is still going on on your work computer. Now click on the "Firewall" tab. "ARD" is already on (coz' you enabled it in "Services"). Click on the "New..." button. Under the "Port Name" drop-down, select "VNC and click "OK." That should list TCP ports 5900-5902 and UDP port 5900. If you already have that enabled, make sure the ports are as listed here.

You need both VNC and ARD enabled even though you aren't using ARD. I think the ARD port is used locally for something or other with VNC. If ARD isn't enabled, it doesn't work.

If you want to tunnel this over ssh, since you cross-posted to the unix forum, I will assume you know at least as much as I do (and that ain't much) about unix. You'll need to have Remote Login enabled on your work computer in sys prefs, just like ARD and VNC. Your work won't need to have 5900-5902 open, though, coz' you'll be tunneling that traffic encrypted over port 22.

Now, let's move to the home computer. Depending on what shell you use in Terminal, edit your .bash_profile, .profile, .bashrc, or whatever. I added a line in mine to create a unix alias command called "home" (you'd probably want to use "work"). I use a bash shell. That added line reads:
alias home='ssh -l jv -L 5901:127.0.0.1:5900 jv.dyndns.org'
the lower case ell is "login" followed by username, the capital L tells what ports to tunnel (5901 to 5900)and to where on my home computer (localhost 127.0.0.1), whose hostname is jv@dyndns.org (not really, but it serves its purpose here for discussion).

So when I want to do a vnc session, I launch a new Terminal window, type "home" to establish a ssh connection with my home computer, then in CotVNC, I connect to host 127.0.0.1:5901 using the password that I typed in at home in the ARD access privileges. My work port 5901 gets tunneled over ssh and dropped off at home on port 5900, which is open for VNC.

Give it a try, see if you experience a marked improvement in throughput. Any other questions on my setup versus yours, feel free to ask. Hopefully I'll keep straight that I'm going from work to home, and that you are trying to go from home to work.

2001 Quicksilver G4 (M8360LL/A) Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Well, that's where I did it -- and like I said, with my configuration as described above, while not "just like being there," it is useable (although the 13-14sec refresh when the desktop picture changes can get to be a little frustrating).