ios 10.2, iPad Air 2, experiencing intermittent lags in apps

[monotious]

I am currently on iPad Air 2, ios 10.2.

I can't remember when this started happening, but I think since a while ago I have been experiencing intermittent, momentary lags in apps.
For most apps, this is not really a big issue, but I use my iPad mostly for these rhythm/music games, where even a moment's lag or stuttering really interferes with the enjoyment of the game.

I know iPad Air 2's hardware is powerful enough to handle the particular games I am playing. I suspect it might have to do with the apps not being perfectly optimized for iOS 10.2, but I am kind of ruling that out too because the very same games run smoothly without such lags on my iPhone 7 plus, also on iOS 10.2. And yes, I know iphone 7 plus has more powerful hardware, including more ram, than ipad air 2, but I really don't think it's the hardware that's at fault for my issue. The games used to run smoothly without a hitch on the same iPad Air 2 when it was on ios 8, and I think they used to run smoothly even on ios 10.2 for the first little while. And no, I can't use iphone 7 plus to play these games be ause iphone 7 plus' screen is too small and I can play on iphone 7 plus only using bluetooth earphones (which has delays, which will be fatal for rhythm/music games where perfect sync between sound and screen is absolutely critically important).

I tried everything that comes up through google search - reboot, turn off icloud, turn off background app refresh, turn off location services, turn on reduced motion and turn off parallax, turned off auto brihtness, there's enough free storage space on my ipad air 2 (more than 10gb), close all other apps when I am playing these games, freed the memory by holding power button and then. Home button, turned off siri suggestion, turned off automatic download/upadates from appstore, etc, changed email setting to manual fetching, turned off most notifications from most apps. In other words, I disabled every feature I could possibly disable, to the point of reducing my ipad air 2 to a fraction of what it can potentially do.

I still experience these occassional "spike"-like lags in my games.

I think my only remaining option is to do a factory reset. My question is, if I back up my ipad and do a factory reset, then restore my ipad using the backup, will it also simply restore whatever that might be causing my issue? Should I instead manually recreate my old configuration after factory resetting the device?

Also, I am on ios 10.2 and want to stay on it, in case I want to jailbreak. Can I do. Factory reset without updating the ios version?

Thank you for reading such a long post. Help would be really appreciated.

 

[gobikerider]

I am currently on iPad Air 2, ios 10.2.

I can't remember when this started happening, but I think since a while ago I have been experiencing intermittent, momentary lags in apps.
For most apps, this is not really a big issue, but I use my iPad mostly for these rhythm/music games, where even a moment's lag or stuttering really interferes with the enjoyment of the game.

I know iPad Air 2's hardware is powerful enough to handle the particular games I am playing. I suspect it might have to do with the apps not being perfectly optimized for iOS 10.2, but I am kind of ruling that out too because the very same games run smoothly without such lags on my iPhone 7 plus, also on iOS 10.2. And yes, I know iphone 7 plus has more powerful hardware, including more ram, than ipad air 2, but I really don't think it's the hardware that's at fault for my issue. The games used to run smoothly without a hitch on the same iPad Air 2 when it was on ios 8, and I think they used to run smoothly even on ios 10.2 for the first little while. And no, I can't use iphone 7 plus to play these games be ause iphone 7 plus' screen is too small and I can play on iphone 7 plus only using bluetooth earphones (which has delays, which will be fatal for rhythm/music games where perfect sync between sound and screen is absolutely critically important).

I tried everything that comes up through google search - reboot, turn off icloud, turn off background app refresh, turn off location services, turn on reduced motion and turn off parallax, turned off auto brihtness, there's enough free storage space on my ipad air 2 (more than 10gb), close all other apps when I am playing these games, freed the memory by holding power button and then. Home button, turned off siri suggestion, turned off automatic download/upadates from appstore, etc, changed email setting to manual fetching, turned off most notifications from most apps. In other words, I disabled every feature I could possibly disable, to the point of reducing my ipad air 2 to a fraction of what it can potentially do.

I still experience these occassional "spike"-like lags in my games.

I think my only remaining option is to do a factory reset. My question is, if I back up my ipad and do a factory reset, then restore my ipad using the backup, will it also simply restore whatever that might be causing my issue? Should I instead manually recreate my old configuration after factory resetting the device?

Also, I am on ios 10.2 and want to stay on it, in case I want to jailbreak. Can I do. Factory reset without updating the ios version?

Thank you for reading such a long post. Help would be really appreciated.

1. Game probably isn't optimized the best
2. iPhone 7 has same 2 GBs of ram albeit it is faster
3. iPhone 7 is ridiculously more powerful than Air 2 not to mention pushing a lot less pixels compared to Air 2.
4. Stop hoping for a jailbreak I'd do a full restore set up as new with no backup, but wait a few days and do this with iOS 10.3 which is going t bring more optimizations and bug fixes.
5. What game? I don't see how a basic music rhythm game would lag on a Air 2 becaise it isn't that aweful although it will lag in a intense 3D game now a days really the graphics being pushed at the resolution it'll bring any iPad to its knees even the newest iPads has fps drops in some games.

 

[monotious]

1. Game probably isn't optimized the best
2. iPhone 7 has same 2 GBs of ram albeit it is faster
3. iPhone 7 is ridiculously more powerful than Air 2 not to mention pushing a lot less pixels compared to Air 2.
4. Stop hoping for a jailbreak I'd do a full restore set up as new with no backup, but wait a few days and do this with iOS 10.3 which is going t bring more optimizations and bug fixes.
5. What game? I don't see how a basic music rhythm game would lag on a Air 2 becaise it isn't that aweful although it will lag in a intense 3D game now a days really the graphics being pushed at the resolution it'll bring any iPad to its knees even the newest iPads has fps drops in some games.

Thanks for your reply.

1. Maybe. Which is a possibility I suggested, but discounted in my OP, seeing how one of the games used to run smoothly on ios 10.2 before this issue started happening. Or if the game was not optimized for ios 10.2, my iPad Air 2's hardware was strong enough to "force" run it smoothly, just as (as I noted in the OP) my iPhone 7 Plus was able to run the games without the lags.

2. Mine is an iPhone 7 Plus, which I believe not only has faster ram, but also 3gb of it, not 2gb.

3. Yes, I was told that an iPhone 7 Plus (not iPhone 7) is more powerful than iPad Air 2, which I noted in the OP - by a factor of roughly three times (and I am sure iPhone 7 is also more powerful than iPad Air 2).

4. Not sure what you mean by stop hoping for a jailbreak. I know there is one out there for iOS 10.2 already. I am just waiting for it to be a bit more refined (untethered, vs. currently semi-tethered one out there). I'd still wait and see what iOS 10.3 brings and how the jailbreak scene develops before doing anything here. I mean, I highly doubt that if the games were not optimized for iOS 10.2, installing iOS 10.3 would suddenly make everyhig optimized. If anything, it will likely make the games even less optimized, unless he devs of the games update heir games.

5. Idolm@ster Cinderella Girls Starlight Stage and BanG Dream! Girls Band Party (only on Japanese app store). Yes, both games don't look so heavily demanding, and they both run mostly smoothly. It's just that there is a "spiky" lag once every minute or so, which I do not think has anything to do with the hardware not being powerful enough or the games being too demanding, but a software or OS background process or some optimization issue somewhere. Like I said, these momentary lags would be ok in most other games and apps, but it's the fact that these are rythm games that is what makes such lags unacceptable because they make you miss beats and lose the full combo. I do know that there are some seriously graphically demanding games out here and yeah, these rhythm games are not like those.


That said, I did go ahead and tried Reset All Settings under Settings -> General -> Reset. Doing this made Starlight Stage run smoothly without lags, but I still see the spiky lags in Girls Band Party. Well, the latter was released on the Appstore only two days ago and the in-game notice promises some sort of fix for "an issue during gameplay" (although it's not clear if such "issue" relates to the lag I am experiencing), so I will just have to wait and see before I take the additional and drastic measure of fully restoring the device. Still pretty happy that simply resetting all settings made one game run better.