Processing animation extremely choppy when getting data from a remote host

I am connecting to a remote web server to get mouse movements stored in a database. The processing program I've written to animate these movements has been INCREDIBLY choppy since putting the code on the server. I realize this is because rather than running locally it's got to fetch the information, but is it possible to speed things up a bit? Here's the code I'm using

String get_users = "http://example.com/get_users.php";
String get_data = "http://example.com/get_data.php?user=";
ArrayList arrows;
PImage mouse;
int[] user_ids;
int num_users;

void setup() {
  size(1024, 768);
  frameRate(24);
  smooth();
  noStroke();
  mouse = loadImage("arrow-clear.png");
  arrows = new ArrayList();
  getUsers();

  for (int i = 0; i < num_users; i++){
    arrows.add(new Arrow(user_ids[i], i*400, 2*i*100));
  }
}

void getUsers(){
  user_ids = int(loadStrings(get_users));
  num_users = user_ids.length;
  println(num_users);
}

void draw() {
  background(0);

  if (frameCount % 600 == 0){
    getUsers();
    for (int i = 0; i < num_users; i++){
      arrows.add(new Arrow(user_ids[i], i*400, 2*i*100));
    }
  }

  for (int i = arrows.size()-1; i >= 0; i--) { 
    Arrow arrow = (Arrow) arrows.get(i);
    arrow.move();
    if (arrow.finished()) {
      arrows.remove(i);
    }
  }

}

class Arrow {
  String[] all_moves, move_pairs, new_moves;
  int[] moves;
  float x;
  float y;
  int id;
  int i = 0;
  Boolean is_done = false;

  Arrow(int tempID, float tempX, float tempY) {
    all_moves = loadStrings(get_data + tempID);
    id = tempID;
    x = tempX;
    y = tempY;
    if  (all_moves.length > 0){
      move_pairs = shorten(split(all_moves[0], "|"));
    }
  }

  void move() {
    if (move_pairs != null){
      if (i < move_pairs.length){
        moves = int(split(move_pairs[i], ","));
        image(mouse, moves[0], moves[1]);
        ++i;
      } else {
        all_moves = loadStrings(get_data + id);
        if  (all_moves.length > 0){
          new_moves = shorten(split(all_moves[0], "|"));
          for (int j = 0; j < new_moves.length; j++){          
            move_pairs = append(move_pairs, new_moves[j]);
          }
          println(move_开发者_Python百科pairs);
        } else {
          is_done = true;
        }
      }
    } else {
        is_done = true;
    }
  }

  boolean finished() {
    if (is_done) {
      return true;
    } else {
      return false;
    }
  }
}

EDIT: To clarify: the Processing application doing all the animation is running locally. The X and Y points for the mouse is the only thing getting downloaded from the server.

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You want to get all of the movement data (or large chunks of it) down to the client, and let the client do the work of animating everything.

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I doubt it is a good idea to download the movement data on every single frame. If you don't need such detailed responsiveness, fetch a batch of movements from the server periodically and queue them for the draw method. Otherwise make sure the server sends only the data needed. I realized that you only use the first line of the data fetched from the server - all_moves[0]. If there is indeed only one line at all - fine.

You should consider using createInput(URL) and read from that stream, this way you wouldn't need to open a new input stream for every movement requested, but your server side code must be able to maintain the streams and write to them continuously.