gnuplot slow on BIG files

[Dimitrios A. <ji...@gm...>]

Hello list,

I just notice that gnuplot (4.0) is extremely slow when dealing with big 
files. In particular I execute the command:

splot 'matrix.asc' matrix every 500:500

where matrix.asc is an 130MB file containing a 6000x6000 matrix. What I 
don't like is that altough the points to plot are about 12x12 the 
processing takes about half an hour.

If I don't specify "every 500:500" the gnuplot process uses more than 
1GB of memory (after much time) and gets killed by the OS. So a second 
point is that it uses more memory than necessary. Actually the memory 
consumed is enormous considering that the points are "only" 36.000.000.

In both cases it is noteworthy that the hard disk is almost idle but the 
CPU at 100% all the time. What I mean is that the reading of the file is 
happening really slowly.

Is this a bug? Or am I doing something wrong? Is there a workaround to 
speed things up?

Thanks in advance,
Dimitris

P.S. Please CC replies directly to me since I'm not subscribed to the list