GC slower via XBoard than via glChess

Hi all,

I'm experiencing slow performance by GNU Chess (5.07) when the program
is called by XBoard (4.2.7). The engine typically takes 10 seconds to
make its first move (as black), whereas the same move is instantaneous
when called by glChess (1.0.2).

I'm issuing the following command to run XBoard:

"xboard -xclock -size 45 -flash -depth 3 -xponder &".

Omitting the -xponder option doesn't seem to improve responsiveness.

Does anyone know what might cause the slowdown?

Thanks in advance,
dae3


-- 
~> cat /etc/redhat-release && uname -a
Scientific Linux SL release 5.1 (Boron)
Linux acerrimo.local 2.6.18-92.1.6.el5 #1 SMP Wed Jun 25 12:46:39 EDT 
2008 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux