Background Suspension
30 tabs open, only one rendering. Inactive tabs use zero GPU cycles.
Questions this answers
- Do background terminal tabs use CPU?
- How to reduce terminal emulator resource usage?
- Why does my terminal slow down with many tabs open?
- Which terminal emulator is most efficient with many tabs?
How it works
When you switch away from a tab, Chau7 suspends all rendering activity for that tab's terminal view. The shell process continues running: your builds, servers, and long-running tasks are unaffected: but the GPU render pipeline stops processing output for that pane. This means 30 background tabs consume the same GPU resources as zero background tabs.
When you switch back to a suspended tab, Chau7 replays the terminal state from the scrollback buffer in a single frame. There is no gradual catch-up or flickering: the terminal appears instantly with all output that accumulated while it was in the background. The resume is fast enough that you cannot perceive any delay between clicking the tab and seeing the current state.
Why it matters
Terminal emulators that render all tabs continuously waste significant GPU and CPU time on content you are not looking at. Chau7 fully suspends inactive tabs: no render cycles, no timer fires, no wasted work. When you switch back, the tab resumes instantly because the state never left memory. It is the reason Chau7 stays fast at 30 tabs.
Frequently asked questions
Do background processes keep running when a tab is suspended?
Yes. Only rendering is suspended. The shell process, all child processes, and all I/O continue normally. Output is buffered in the scrollback and rendered instantly when you switch to the tab.
Is there any delay when switching to a suspended tab?
No perceptible delay. The terminal state is reconstructed from the scrollback buffer in a single frame, typically under 1 millisecond. It appears instant.