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Major lag with the Ipad version

Twilight_FoxTwilight_Fox Member Posts: 448
edited September 2013 in iPad (Archive)
Hello,
I bought an iPad with Retina display nearly a month ago and I am playing bg:ee on it since then. Everything was fine for a long time except for the lag created by many aoe spells and some river/waterfall/chimney animations (stuff like that).. since its seems that it will be corrected in the new patch, that not a big deal.

But now, I'm back to CandleKeep (chapter6?) and the game is simply unplayable. It was really hard to complete the last parts of Baldur's Gate since it was laggy all the time. The only work around that I found is to move only with my strongest party member alone and only in one of the corners of the screen (so most of the map is in the fog of war).. if I do that, there are no lag and I can move freely. Same thing for the many fights, I have to pause/choice the actions/de-pause and then look somewhere else on the map while my party is fighting without lag since I'm not watching them.

Of course I can't enjoy the game in these conditions, so I can't finish my game.

- 90% on my hard disc is unused
- I have only 7-8 installed applications
- no other applications are active (sometime skype, but since the lag issue, closed too)
- wireless disabled
- bluetooth disabled
- I know my device, there are nothing in background
- nothing else is laggy on my ipad when skype, safari, the bluetooth, the wireless, the appstore and probably 3 others thing are open at the same time.

I will surely try a new game tomorrow and wander around. Maybe this is linked to the amount of things that must be loaded in an advanced game (I still haven't complete Tosc tough), even saving and loading a game take a lot more time now.

Comments

  • riyahhassettriyahhassett Member Posts: 59
    I zoom in all the way and that makes it playable
  • Twilight_FoxTwilight_Fox Member Posts: 448
    I will try that then. It can be a temporary solution.
  • Twilight_FoxTwilight_Fox Member Posts: 448
    edited September 2013
    Yeah its working, that really ugly and tricky this way, but at least I can play without seeing everything in slow motion. I will test a new game soon to be sure that the issue is only with advanced save game/lot of map and mission finished.
  • Twilight_FoxTwilight_Fox Member Posts: 448
    Yeah, the issue is only with an 'old save' with many maps and quests achieved, the news one are OK.

    So, when this lag issue is planned to be fix?
  • meaglothmeagloth Member Posts: 3,806
    @twilight_fox that's the question, isn't it.
  • Twilight_FoxTwilight_Fox Member Posts: 448
    Same issue with a 'new game' by now. After 10-12 maps unlocked (5-6 of them are completed), its now laggy all the time. :S
  • VintrastormVintrastorm Member Posts: 216
    Maybe @Cerevant has an answer?
  • IllydthIllydth Member, Developer Posts: 1,641

    Hello,
    I bought an iPad with Retina display nearly a month ago and I am playing bg:ee on it since then. Everything was fine for a long time except for the lag created by many aoe spells and some river/waterfall/chimney animations (stuff like that).. since its seems that it will be corrected in the new patch, that not a big deal.

    But now, I'm back to CandleKeep (chapter6?) and the game is simply unplayable. It was really hard to complete the last parts of Baldur's Gate since it was laggy all the time. The only work around that I found is to move only with my strongest party member alone and only in one of the corners of the screen (so most of the map is in the fog of war).. if I do that, there are no lag and I can move freely. Same thing for the many fights, I have to pause/choice the actions/de-pause and then look somewhere else on the map while my party is fighting without lag since I'm not watching them.

    Of course I can't enjoy the game in these conditions, so I can't finish my game.

    - 90% on my hard disc is unused
    - I have only 7-8 installed applications
    - no other applications are active (sometime skype, but since the lag issue, closed too)
    - wireless disabled
    - bluetooth disabled
    - I know my device, there are nothing in background
    - nothing else is laggy on my ipad when skype, safari, the bluetooth, the wireless, the appstore and probably 3 others thing are open at the same time.

    I will surely try a new game tomorrow and wander around. Maybe this is linked to the amount of things that must be loaded in an advanced game (I still haven't complete Tosc tough), even saving and loading a game take a lot more time now.

    I have an iPad 3: A system with slower hardware than your iPad 4. I am currently in chapter 7, having completed all of Baldur's Gate, Candle Keep and am progressing through the Tales of the Sword Coast content (Durlag's Tower completed earlier today, on Baldurian's Island now).

    The game is not "unplayable". And unfortunately with the use of that word, I end up assuming the OP is simply impatient and unwilling to deal with anything that's not "perfect", since (while it has been slow and somewhat choppy in certain areas) my copy of the game is FAR from "unplayable"...as is evidenced by the fact that I am significantly farther than the OP on the game on worse hardware.

    The actions described here are FAR from what I have to do...the ONLY combat I have yet to have had to move my screen around for is the Chess Board in Durlag's: And that was because I cast 2 cloudkill spells and a stinking cloud spell right on top of one another. I agree if you want a COMPLETELY SMOOTH, totally un stuttered, perfectly rendered play 100% of the time, you may need to do what you're doing. If, on the other hand, 70% of normal speed is acceptable to you during combat, none of the move screen and walk around the edges stuff is needed.

    By what it sounds like, you have a potentially corrupted installation. If i give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're not just being a perfectionist who can't handle it if the game doesn't run at a full 60 FPS all the time, I can assure you that the efforts you're having to go through to play the game are abnormal. You can get to 2 - 5 FPS on the game by casting multiple AOE spells on top of each other (like multiple cloudkills or stinking clouds). Otherwise I don't think I've ever seen my game drop below about 15 - 20 fps. It's unlikely I'm EVER getting a full 60 FSP on my iPad 3, but most places and most areas I'm assuredly getting a guestimate of at least 30-40 FPS.

    If this is more than impatience, I recommend trying to re-install the game (backup your data using iFunBox, then delete the app, lock, stock and barrel...then re-install it). Also, if you're trying to play with mods...remove them and try again.
  • CerevantCerevant Member Posts: 2,314
    The new update will definitely improve performance, but I simply cannot give an explanation of why you are having performance issues that you weren't seeing before. As @Ilydth mentioned, we have a good number of iPad users who are seeing the issues with AoE spells, but find the game otherwise playable.

    Some questions / ideas:

    * If you start a new game do you see the performance issues that you weren't seeing before?

    If not, are you able to send us a save game (iFunbox will allow you to do this) for an area where you are seeing the problem?

    If you are seeing problems with a new game, I suspect then there is something up with your iPad. Here are a few things you can try:

    * Close everything using the multitasking UI and reboot, try the game and see if that helped.
    * Back up your iPad, restore the iPad but don't restore the backup yet. Install the game and see if that helped.
    * Then go ahead and restore the backup, and see if it still does / doesn't work

    Thanks for your patience, and sorry for your troubles!
  • IllydthIllydth Member, Developer Posts: 1,641
    @Cerevant: the OP mentions in one of his posts that he can start a new game and be fine but that after opening up / exploring something like 10 - 12 zones his game gets REALLY slow.

    @Twilight_Fox: Can you get a saved game to us somehow for where it's REALLY slow? (Dropbox download, etc.) so we can get a look at it?
  • Twilight_FoxTwilight_Fox Member Posts: 448
    When i said unplayable, i mean it. The movement of each party member is really slow and fighting this way is nearly impossible, except if you want to watch a 3 seconds fight become a 1 minute fight.

    From my observations, this is only if the game is open since a long time, maybe 4-5h. If i close the ipad 20-30min and reopen it to play, everything is working just fine except the little acceptable lags that we have with the animated stuff.

    So I was able to finish my first game this way (by closing the game and the ipad for 20-30min when the extreme lag begin), same with my second game. The real issue now is the werewolf island and my bugged party that cant be cured from lycantropy.

    Since this is not linked to the save game, I will not send it. Its just seem that if we leave our ipad open with only bg:ee running (and sometime safari) it will become extremely laggy if we wait 4-6h before resuming the game (or play all this time, but its seem a little bit excessive ^^)

    You should watch your manners illy, your are but a nuisance for the team with this hostile attitude toward player that just try to explain their issues with the ipad version.
  • IllydthIllydth Member, Developer Posts: 1,641
    @Twilight_Fox:

    With all due respect Twilight, I recommend you re-read my posts and Cerevant's. Both of us are trying to help you with your issue. Tones and attitudes are tough to discern in a text based format and thus I encourage you to re-read what I wrote.

    But let me boil it down:

    There are several people on these forums who use the word "unplayable" to describe their experience with this game...not just you. That word HAS ALWAYS meant something different to everyone who's used it. In many cases "unplayable" has come to mean "doesn't work as I want it to." It is a subjective term that typically is used both incorrectly and hostilely on these forums an thus I tend to call people out on it every time I see it. If this offended you, that was not the intent.

    The important part you need to know is that what you are describing is ABNORMAL from what the vast majority of iPad owners are experiencing with respect to this game. Because you are not experiencing what most of us are, we are looking at it from the standpoint of something being wrong with either your hardware or your installation.

    This is where Cerevant's Suggestions come from. I'd encourage you to run the tests he's suggested in his post to see what happens.

    The reason we're asking for a saved game is because many many many copies of files are stored with the saved game. Things like the various area files you have entered are all there along with the saved game file. By loading your saved game file, we can tell if there is some corruption that's causing this or if the issue is at the game code level.

    One thing I couldn't tell from your descriptions:

    Does this happen:

    * When actually playing the game for X Number of Hours?
    * When turning the iPad off with the game in the foregroun for X number of Hours?
    * When task swapping BG:EE out to the background and leaving it alive for X number of Hours?

    You mention leaving the game closed to 20 - 30 minutes. I assume you mean actually killing the game from the background tasks? (double clicking the button at the bottom of the iPad and tap/holding/closing or swiping up on the backgrounded app to close it) Does it only clear up if closed for 20-30 minutes? What about 10? 5? I ask this because closing the app and re-opening should have no difference in effect whether the app is closed for 5 hours or 5 minutes, closed is closed.

    That said, this has all the halmarks of memory corruption...whether because of a memory leak in the app (though I would expect us all to get the same leak if it were code related), because the OS is doing something Funky with the memory (you are on the most recent version of either iOS 6 or 7 right?), or because you have some hardware issue (potentially bad RAM chip is what I'd call this if you were experiencing this on windows)...the "it runs fine for a while and gets progressively slower the longer I play it till it no longer runs acceptably" is a classic sign of a memory issue.
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