Here and there I play HotS on my Macbook Pro connected to an external Display.
The game generally runs very smoothly, but something ridiculous has been bothering me for a while now. I couldn’t find anything online regarding this issue:
Every time my iPhone or iPad receives a message/notification of any kind, the game becomes very stuttery and basically unplayable. This usually lasts for more or less the duration of the screen being lit up on other device.
What I now do is turn off Wifi on the devices that are not being used. This sometimes seems to immediately make the game less stuttery, but not always. I might also disable bluetooth, which I’m not sure if it does anything. However, even with Wifi and Bluetooth turned off on my iPhone and iPad, the game usually STILL stutters if I get anything on these devices. Even if I’m just touching the screen to check time. It’s driving me nuts.
I think I’ve noticed this issue since the introduction of sidecar and other Apple-ID based functions such as the copy-paste function across devices. So one thing I can imagine interfering with the game is iCloud running certain things in the background whenever the iPhone/iPad is being activated in any way (touching screen, lock button, notifications). But I haven’t noticed any of this with any other game yet.
Another issue is the lag spikes whenever the action starts, but that’s a whole other story.
I have a fast and stable Wifi connection and a macbook pro m1 max (which is more than capable to play the game), so that can’t be the issue.
I’d rather not completely turn off all my other devices whenever I wanna play HotS, or even having to turn off wifi, bluetooth etc every time. And no, I don’t want to disable iCloud, I need it for my work.
I made a post in the Apple Support Community too. But maybe it’s a HotS thing, who knows…
So any suggestions on what else I could try to solve this, would be much appreciated!
Specs
MacBook Pro 14" 2021
M1 Max, 32-Core GPU
64 GB unified Ram
1 TB SSD
Possibly caused by the notification causing HotS to think it has been minimised? HotS runs at a reduced frame rate when minimised to save system resources.
hey! this happens to me too! i play games on my ipad Pro using a streaming service called shadow PC and i noticed whenever i check my phone or get any kind of notification everything just begins to stutter… like today i was trying to play borderlands 3 but it just wouldn’t run right… i avg 600+mbps download and upload. so i’m thinking maybe it has tondo with their cloud system. let me know if you hear or figured anything out!
Hi! I noticed the very same behaviour. I believe many more people are experiencing this, just thinking it is due to internet connection or not enough RAM. I tried:
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Turn off “universal control” - others say this help, but I assume the problem is hidden behind that. Universal control wakes up the other device, so it is basically as touching your phone
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Turn off “Handoff” - this did not improve anything, still just touching iPhone cause shutter, so it is not synchronising the handoff data then
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Connect iPhone to mobile data (separate connection) - as many say the Starcraft 2 engine relies on stable internet connection so switching phone to “another line” should help, right? No effect
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Airplane mode - this ultimately cuts off all possible iCloud sync or whatever is going on and actually solved the stutter when touching phone. Nevertheless, this only a workaround and very impractical one.
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Continuity camera - I noticed my iPhone connecting as camera and mic to the mac due to new MacOS functionality. Switching it off in the phone setting also did not bring any fruits.
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AirDrop on MacBook - seems to improve the situation, not stutter on each phone wake up, but still happening
It also seems to affect other software, for example:
https ://github.com/moonlight-stream/moonlight-qt/issues/159#issuecomment-541860452
In this response the wifi was identified as bottleneck, being blocked due to some scanning of near devices:
https ://github.com/moonlight-stream/moonlight-qt/issues/159#issuecomment-1105343182
Looking further I found more information about the Apple Wireless Direct protocol, starting on Monterey and Ventura and this post resolved the issue, being also an workaround though:
https ://apple.stackexchange.com/a/454060
I am from Europe, so channel 149 on 5GHz is not available. Setting wifi to channel 44 worked. Tested one game not and buttery smooth.
The title of this thread is accurate. I signed into iCloud this morning and forgot about it. I tried to play a couple games later in the day and it was unbearable. I signed out of iCloud and just like that, the stuttering was gone. Funny enough it looks like I was automatically signed back into iCloud, but the stuttering is still gone. For anyone reading, try manually signing out of iCloud on your MacBook and testing Heroes right after.