Key repeat rate is 3x slower than in system settings (Linux, Wayland) #43330
Description
Summary
I set my system key repeat rate very high, and on Linux, Wayland, Zed’s key repeat is 3x slower than these settings.
Description
I’m running Zed 0.212.6 on the default config, on Hyprland 0.49.0 (Wayland, Linux), and set these libinput settings:
repeat_delay = 150
repeat_rate = 125
The unit of repeat_delay is milliseconds, and of repeat_rate – repeats per second.
Steps to reproduce:
- Set the
repeat_delayandrepeat_ratein your window manager input config. - Open freshly installed Zed.
- For exactly 10 seconds, press a key, e.g.
x. - Copy the resulting
xxxx…string intowc -cand note the number of characters.
Expected Behavior:
Zed’s rate is 125 repeats/second, so you get around 1,250 xxxx… characters.
Actual Behavior:
Zed’s rate is 41.3 repeats/second, so you get around 413 xxxx… characters.
For a person used to 125 repeats/second, it makes—otherwise very performant—Zed feel a little sluggish.
Comparing with other apps
I used the same steps to reproduce (above) with other apps for comparison.
Their results consistently match the repeat_rate that I set system-wide.
| Text input env | Repeats per 10 s | Repeats per 1 s |
|---|---|---|
Zed (a *.txt file) |
413 | 41.3 |
| Zed (a terminal pane) | 472 | 47.2 |
| NodepadNext | 1,137 | 113.7 |
cat running in Alacritty |
1,230 | 123.0 |
Emacs (a *.txt file) |
1,224 | 122.4 |
| Firefox URL bar | 1,246 | 124.6 |
Firefox <textarea> |
1,224 | 122.4 |
You can see that all other apps generally match the system-wide repeat_rate = 125, while Zed is at around 45.
Hypothesis
Could the 40–50 key repeats per second be the same as Zed’s frame rate? 😮
Zed Version and System Specs
Zed: v0.212.6 (Zed)
OS: Linux Wayland nixos 25.05
Memory: 31 GiB
Architecture: x86_64
GPU: Intel(R) UHD Graphics 630 (CFL GT2) || Intel open-source Mesa driver || Mesa 25.0.7
If applicable, attach your Zed.log file to this issue.
n/a