Extremely slow Matlab interface, when accessed by VPN from a Windows 7 (64bit) laptop

Hi All

I would really appreciate if some experts can help me solve this huge headache. Many thanks in advance.

The issue: When I used the home laptop (Dell Inspiron 1545, Windows 7 Home Premium, 64bit)to remotely access Matlab (2011a, 64bit) on work PC (windows 7, 64bit, with lots of memory and hard drive space), the Matlab interface was extremely slow. Both the command window and the editor would be so slow that they looked like slow-moving waves when I moved the cursor up or down.

Additional information: * The actual Matlab computing speed seemed to be normal. * The slow moving window issue seemed to only happen to Matlab, not to explorer, Excel, Word, etc. * If I used another laptop (IBM Thinkpad, Windows XP) to access Matlab on the same work PC, I wouldn't have the slow Matlab windows issue anymore.

[Walter Roberson]

The other laptops that you use for access: are you also testing those at home, or testing from inside work? If you test the home laptop from inside work, how is the speed?

[Rob]

Thanks, Walter for your reply. I used both laptops at home. The one with XP works fine but the one with Win 7 Home Premium had this issue. Would you have any guess about potential causes?

Thanks again.

[Jonathan Sullivan]

I've seen this as well. I believe it has something to do with how matlab paints the screen and remote desktop.

[Sean de Wolski]

Usually restarting MATLAB after having the VPN connection made for a little while makes it run at full speed for me.

Answer 1

[Jason Ross]

Remote Desktop provides a lot of tweaks that help improve performance under the "Options" drop down when you start it. These include color depth, size, audio settings, clipboard and printers as well as some presets under the "Experience" tab for different connection speeds. I'd check the settings of Remote Desktop on the Windows XP system and compare them to the same settings on the Windows 7 one. It's possible that the Windows XP one is having to transmit less data and is therefore more responsive.

Or you could export the connection profile on the WinXP system and then import it on the Windows 7 one, which should make sure you have the exact same settings on the two machines.

Windows 7 also has a different graphics model than Windows XP. It's possible that Windows 7 is trying to use hardware acceleration over your VPN connection (this functionality was introduced in the Vista timeframe), which would explain why it's slow, as this would be a whole lot more additional information to come over the wire.

[Rob]

Thank you so much, everyone for trying to solve my problem.

Jason, your assessment was right! It turned out as soon as I changed "Color" setting from "Highest Quality (32bit)" to a lower level, say "High Color (16bit)" (my XP's setting), the Matlab on a remote PC would work fine!

Thanks again. This forum is awesome!

[Jason Ross]

No problem, glad I could help!

[C Schwittek]

Hi Jason, that also perfectly worked for me 8 years later! Thanks.

[Felix]

Hi Schwittek, could you elaborate on what options you accessed in windows? I'm having trouble finding equivalent options in 2020 on Windows 10.