Hello,
Well, Netscape mangled my SDL RLE post making it hard to read.
Instead of reposting it I suggest you read the “README” from
the rlebench package. Its the same text basically, but should
be easier to read (especially the benchmark results :).
URL: http://linuxbox.fdns.net/SDL/SDL_RLE-speedup-patch.tar.gz
Sorry about that. 
Take it easy,
Ken Jordan
@Xark
P.S. Yes, I know I should be using a better newsreader.