What's the deal with this "virtual mode"?

Hello folks,

I do not understand quite well what's the deal of the so called "virtual mode". If for example, I have 100k records query transformed to xml by server-side script, that's a big file that may become many 10s of MB. What's the point to show it in "chunks" at the client if the file should be downloaded one way or the other clogging the line and server in the background. According my understanding, only *real* paging - done server side - can be the way to go. Am I missing something?

Thanks.

I agree that for your scenario the only solution is 'real' server-side paging. However there are many cases where the bandwidth is not an issue (intranets) and the number of records is in 1000-10'000 range. In this case the 'virtual' scrolling might be more simple and more user-friendly solution.