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AirPlay/Mirroring from iPhone 4S to Apple TV -- is it supposed to be laggy?

MythicFrost

MythicFrost

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Mar 11, 2009
3,944
40
Australia
Hey,

I've got myself an iPhone 4S and an Apple TV, I'm using AirPlay/AirPlay Mirroring from my 4S, and I find it to be a bit choppy, especially in a game like Modern Combat 3, which is output at 720p, or Real Racing 2, etc.

Is that normal? My AEBS is quite far away from the Apple TV -- they're at opposite ends of the house, would it make a significant difference if they were closer? I can't really move them, but I could add a second AEBS at some point, if that might help. I have noticed poorer WiFi performance down there, and occasionally the Apple TV loses its WiFi connection temporarily.

Or perhaps the Apple TV's simply not able to update the screen fast enough since it only has the A4?
 
Spencie said:
Pretty laggy for me too. Seems to be like that for everyone
Click to expand...
Mmm, I see. Is your AEBS near or far from your Apple TV?

I wonder if it's due to the processor, on the Apple TV or WiFi. I'm hoping the former, because it should be fine at 1080p over WiFi with a quad-core Apple TV, I hope anyway.
 
No, I just think the Airplay approach doesn't work well for gaming. Streaming the contents to the screen just takes too long (even if just a fraction of a second, it could introduce enough lag to make - say - a racing game unplayable).

It'd work much better if the AppleTV ran a copy of the same game, and the iPhone/iPad just streamed the controls.
 
I don't believe the apple tv does any video processing, its the network connection. If you use a remote desktop on your iphone or ipad with your mac or windows pc you'll notice it lags as well. Its just a network bottleneck, especially when using wifi.
 
whooleytoo said:
No, I just think the Airplay approach doesn't work well for gaming. Streaming the contents to the screen just takes too long (even if just a fraction of a second, it could introduce enough lag to make - say - a racing game unplayable).

It'd work much better if the AppleTV ran a copy of the same game, and the iPhone/iPad just streamed the controls.
Click to expand...
I see, well I hope Apple finds some solution to it. What you said may be possible, but if Apple could find a way to do it without lag wirelessly, that'd be better.
jwm2 said:
I don't believe the apple tv does any video processing, its the network connection. If you use a remote desktop on your iphone or ipad with your mac or windows pc you'll notice it lags as well. Its just a network bottleneck, especially when using wifi.
Click to expand...
Mmm, I see. Perhaps the distance to my AEBS is too far, or perhaps the ATV isn't able to receive and display these images fast enough? I hope it's the latter. I find remote desktop stuff like Splashtop works pretty well, it's not 30 FPS but it isn't really laggy. I also find sometimes the ATV actually stops displaying images briefly in one game, whenever I move, and then it sort of displays them in order as if its trying to catch up -- that gives me a little hope that it's the ATV.
 
MythicFrost said:
I see, well I hope Apple finds some solution to it. What you said may be possible, but if Apple could find a way to do it without lag wirelessly, that'd be better.
Click to expand...

I tried playing Cro-Mag Rally, and visually it appeared fine; not dropping frames or noticeably slower than the iPad's display.

However, when you start playing the game you immediately notice the difference. I was dovetailing all over the place because my inputs were based on the TV display which was laggy. If I switched to watching the iPad display, I immediately was able to drive a lot better.

So Airplay gaming is probably perfectly fine for strategy or slow-moving games, but not for 'twitch-reflex' games like FPS or racing games.

I'm not sure precisely how Wifi works, but Apple might be able to improve the latency by integrating a Wifi router into the AppleTV itself; that might improve latency.

However, the best option would be let the AppleTV do the game/screen processing and just use your iPhone/iPad as a remote.
 
It's not laggy for me but my Apple TV is connected by ethernet and I use an Apple Time Capsule router. Even still, playing fast paced games like Real Racing 2 doesn't have the same feel as you would get viewing it directly on the device.

I think Airplay mirroring is mostly meant for thinks like Keynote presentations, displaying maps, documents, games that aren't fast paced like board games or Angry Birds type of games. Basically anything that regular Video Airplay can't do but is not fast paced.

I especially like using it for putting presentations on the big screen.
 
newagemac said:
It's not laggy for me but my Apple TV is connected by ethernet and I use an Apple Time Capsule router.
Click to expand...

I think this is the key. It seems like when you have a connection from one wireless device to another over the same router, you get in effect half of the bandwidth per side of the connection (ie - half from the phone to the router, and half from the router to the ATV).

When you move the ATV to your ethernet, you get the full wireless bandwidth for your Airplay connection.
 
whooleytoo said:
I tried playing Cro-Mag Rally, and visually it appeared fine; not dropping frames or noticeably slower than the iPad's display.

However, when you start playing the game you immediately notice the difference. I was dovetailing all over the place because my inputs were based on the TV display which was laggy. If I switched to watching the iPad display, I immediately was able to drive a lot better.

So Airplay gaming is probably perfectly fine for strategy or slow-moving games, but not for 'twitch-reflex' games like FPS or racing games.

I'm not sure precisely how Wifi works, but Apple might be able to improve the latency by integrating a Wifi router into the AppleTV itself; that might improve latency.

However, the best option would be let the AppleTV do the game/screen processing and just use your iPhone/iPad as a remote.
Click to expand...
The latency doesn't bother me, I was able to play Modern Combat 3 quite well, it was really just the intermittent lagging. Whatever it is, I hope they're able to do something about it -- it's a brilliant concept.
newagemac said:
It's not laggy for me but my Apple TV is connected by ethernet and I use an Apple Time Capsule router. Even still, playing fast paced games like Real Racing 2 doesn't have the same feel as you would get viewing it directly on the device.

I think Airplay mirroring is mostly meant for thinks like Keynote presentations, displaying maps, documents, games that aren't fast paced like board games or Angry Birds type of games. Basically anything that regular Video Airplay can't do but is not fast paced.

I especially like using it for putting presentations on the big screen.
Click to expand...
Mmm, I see. That's probably it then, although Modern Combat 3 was actually all right -- I was able to shoot and kill things, the delay didn't feel bad at all -- the intermittent lag was though.
aross99 said:
I think this is the key. It seems like when you have a connection from one wireless device to another over the same router, you get in effect half of the bandwidth per side of the connection (ie - half from the phone to the router, and half from the router to the ATV).

When you move the ATV to your ethernet, you get the full wireless bandwidth for your Airplay connection.
Click to expand...
Mmm interesting. That'd be one long ethernet cable for me, haha!
 
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