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Level 1

24 points

Stuttering on iPad Air 2

Hi,

I bought a brand new iPad Air 2 a few days ago and have been using an iPad Air before that. Both run iOS 8.1.

There is a distinct stuttering in high-load games like 'Real Racing 3' and 'Asphalt 8'. Both games run on the iPad Air 2 with a serious frame drop / stuttering.

In Real Racing 3 it seems to be constant: frames drop every now and then, the game seems to freeze for just a fraction of a second. It's subtle, but it's clearly there.

In Asphalt 8 the problem is different: the gameplay is very smooth, but every 60-90 seconds the game will go into a bizarre stutter that can only be resolved by pausing the game and then resuming. After resuming all is smooth again.

It seems the upgrade from an iPad Air to iPad Air 2 'broke' video games that depend on FPS.

I tried resetting the iPad to no avail.

Might there be a problem with the new hardware inside or is this a software issue?

Does anybody else have the same problem?

PS: I restored the iPad from a backup. I'll try a clean install, but I'm pretty sure this will probably not be of much help.

iPad Air, iOS 8.1, iPad Air 2

Posted on Nov 7, 2014 4:40 AM

18 replies

Jan 8, 2015 7:20 AM in response to htmaxpower

As a follow-up, I wanted to let you know I submitted a support request on January 4. It included a movie of a race replay, clearly showing the dropped frames. No response yet.

ARB-82 Author

Level 1

24 points

May 6, 2015 8:15 AM in response to htmaxpower

htmaxpower wrote:

ARB-82, I have this problem as well, though on my iPhone 6 Plus. Dropping frames every few seconds, so it feels like it's stuttering. I have plenty of space, and it WASN'T happening last week when the memory was near capacity. I've been playing for about three trouble-free weeks, until yesterday. Since then I have tried:

clearing up space

restarting the phone and running no other apps

running in airplane mode

backing up my profile to the cloud and doing a clean install, then using my backup

Nothing has stopped the stutter, and it's not dependent on the gameplay at the time. I can be along on the track with very little changing on the frame, and it drops frames. It even makes me a bit nauseous, and it's very noticeable to me. I fear it's the game.

Is this in RR3 of in Asphalt8?

ARB-82 Author

Level 1

24 points

May 6, 2015 8:20 AM in response to romainSH

romainSH wrote:

I tested my iPad Air 2 and noticed low FPS in some introduction scenes of Asphalt 8. Sometimes, there are a few dropped frames when playing too.

If you are still having issue with this game, I'd suggest you report it to their customer service. To do so, tap on the Options icon (gear), tap on "Customer Care", tap on "Game randomly freezes or lags" then tap on "I also have this problem!". Make sure you fill in the form and specify you have an iPad Air 2 and send it. If they get many bug reports for iPad Air 2, they will probably fix this issue for this device.

Anyway, lags/freezes seem to be a known issue with Asphalt 8, as they write:

"We have received reports from our players indicating that they experience some random lags and game freezes. Our development team is consistantly working on the optimizations that allow the game to use fewer of the device's resources. [...]"

Hopefully this will get fixed.

Hmm, this is interesting. In fact I still have this problem in Asphalt 8 from time to time, although it seems to have been reduced a little.

What's so strange: it was fine on an iPad Air and the problem started with the iPad Air 2. Something must have changed in either hard/software.

However, I noticed someone in this thread also noted the problem on an iPhone 6+. This might indicate it's not an iPad Air 2 problem only.

RR3: this seems to have improved a lot. I only see a dropped frame here and there when load is very high (a lot of cars and a lot of depth of view).

Plants and Zombies 2: this app has received several updates to fix the problem and was clearly something that was a software fix.

Stuttering on iPad Air 2