>How much of a VFP table is actually buffered to memory when it is opened? My >thought is since local views open the required VFP tables locally on each >client machine and the processing to create the view is done on the client >machine why do I see such a performance difference?

Only the records you retrieve are buffered on your local system in temporary cursors.

The other thing that may be bogging you down is if you are using your local views as SQL query source files. When you issue a SQL Select, VFP opens up the source file again (so as not to move your cursor and other reasons). By opening the source view again, it has to go over the wire to get the records. So while you think you querying on a local source, you are really querying two sources.

HTH.