Speed up plot() function for large dataset

Question

I am using plot() for over 1 mln data points and it turns out to be very slow.

Is there any way to improve the speed including programming and hardware

Answer 1

an easy and fast way is to set pch='.' . The performance is shown below

x=rnorm(10^6)
> system.time(plot(x))
  user  system elapsed 
  2.87   15.32   18.74 
> system.time(plot(x,pch=20))
  user  system elapsed 
  3.59   22.20   26.16 
> system.time(plot(x,pch='.'))
  user  system elapsed 
  1.78    2.26    4.06