AFTERPAD

Kevin wrote:

I'm working on another article about Airplay latency at the moment, actually, but I'll stream-of-consciousness some of my thoughts down out here.

It's a bit more complicated than you'd expect. A8 powered devices *greatly* outperform A7 devices over AirPlay - almost half the latency - and show modest gains over Lightning.

Similarly, the "silent revision" Apple TV 3 v2 is significantly better than the standared Apple TV 3, due to the fact that it makes a direct P2P connection between the iPhone and the Apple TV, rather than bouncing to the router first.

Lastly, bluetooth controller latency GREATLY compounds AirPlay latency. The Gamevice guys claims that in their testing, bluetooth lag acts as a multiplier to streaming latency, rather than strictly being additional - meaning 10ms bt latency and 80ms AirPlay latency actually lags far more than 90ms.

My own testing suggests that wired controllers do perform noticably better than wireless ones over streaming, though not to the point of being a straight multiplier. The bad news is, the only wired controllers currently available are for the iPhone 5S form class, which lags twice as much as newer A8-powered devices. The good news is, I'm testing a few new wired controllers for A8 (and presumably A9) devices, so this won't be a problem for long.

As for whether it's playable, a lot of that comes down to you. I've been playing through Sonic 1 on an iPhone 6 using a lightning-connected controller and an Apple TV 3 v2, and I'm doing fine. I found this same setup unplayable with an iPhone 5S + Moga Ace Power and a Apple TV 3 v1.

The one thing I'm on the fence about is whether the Apple TV 3 v2 is superior to the Lightning to HDMI cable. My gut says the Lightning output is a bit better. The problem is, it occupies a Lightning port, thus requiring you to use a Bluetooth controller, which compounds the lag even more and erases any gains.

If someone were to ask me today what the best way to play iPad games on the TV is, I'd probably recommend an Apple TV 3 v2, iPad Air 2, and the Gamevice.

For iPhone 6 gamers, there's no great controller cases out now (we're a few months away from one), so I'd say probably Lightning-to-HDMI and a Mad Catz or Hori controller (the SteelSeries ones lag more).

Hi Kevin!

This is new for me. What exactly is this apple tv 3 v2? Is it an OS upgrade or a different hardware?
My current set up is a mad catz controller, iphone 6 plus, digital adapter (or apple tv 3). I am not sure if it a v1 or v2...

Just for curiosity: a ps3/ps4 controller suffers from the same lag? 10ms looks like a considerable delay for a game console...

Kevin wrote:

Jinjas wrote:

Hi Kevin.

Do you plan to add a search option in the MFi games list? Because the "all games" list is getting bigger everyday, an option to search if a specific game has controller support would be nice!

Awesome site, by the way!

Glad you like the site!

It'll come, it's harder than it seems to implement one. Categories and genre sorting will come before native search.

You can actually search the game list right now in mobile Safari. Type your search term into URL bar, and choose the bottom option in the search bar to search in-page.

Yes, the safari search option is an alternative solution for now, but even with the performance tuning that you made (and it was a very good job, by the way!) in the mobile site, load more than 700 game icons, texts and links to use the safari search is taking a long time, considering cellular connections in my area.

But it was just a feedback for you to add in your backlog list. I know that should be a list of other implementations being planned!

Thank you!

Hi Kevin! Congratulations from Brazil! The new site is so fast that Google might be envy of you.

Do you have a gamecenter user? What is your primary choice for gaming: 6, 6 plus, ipad mini etc?

See ya