# Improving session speed

The performance of a Remote Desktop session is decreased and applications might run slower when animation and graphics-intensive features are transmitted over the network connection. After a session starts, the Macintosh computer is updated when there are display changes on the Windows-based computer. Because animation processes require constant display updates, this can decrease performance, especially on slower connections. For example, videos and animated images in applications and on the Web can cause this behavior.

Some options that can cause slower session performance include the following:

- Show desktop background

- Show font smoothing

- Show contents of window while dragging

- Show menu and window animation

- Show themes

To improve performance, you can turn off some of these options.

Tip To turn off display options, on the RDC menu, click Preferences, click Display, and then clear any of the check boxes.

### See also

Create and change connection files

Remote Desktop Connection display preferences