"
Most people's mental model of Claude Code is that "it's just a TUI" but it should really be closer to "a small game engine".
For each frame our pipeline constructs a scene graph with React then
-> layouts elements
-> rasterizes them to a 2d screen
-> diffs that against the previous screen
-> finally uses the diff to generate ANSI sequences to draw
We have a ~16ms frame budget so we have roughly ~5ms to go from the React scene graph to ANSI written.
"
60fps is pathetic for a TUI when most terminals worth their salt are GPU accelerated and displays can be up to 240fps or even more. But let’s be real if I can play Quake at >500 fps they have no excuse.
https://x.com/trq212/status/2014051501786931427
" Most people's mental model of Claude Code is that "it's just a TUI" but it should really be closer to "a small game engine".
For each frame our pipeline constructs a scene graph with React then -> layouts elements -> rasterizes them to a 2d screen -> diffs that against the previous screen -> finally uses the diff to generate ANSI sequences to draw
We have a ~16ms frame budget so we have roughly ~5ms to go from the React scene graph to ANSI written. "
You can argue that any UI is like a game engine in that sense. Some make sensible choices and don't need to pretend they have to render at 60fps.
60fps is pathetic for a TUI when most terminals worth their salt are GPU accelerated and displays can be up to 240fps or even more. But let’s be real if I can play Quake at >500 fps they have no excuse.
Do they reconstruct the scene graph for each frame?! Maybe I'm overinterpreting the phrasing. Someone take a peek at the source?
Not reliably.
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