Lara Croft: Relic Run Performance Issues on Lumia 950 XL

[John McIlhinney]

I upgraded from a Lumia 925 to a Lumia 950 XL late last year. One of the things I was looking forward to was improved performance when playing Lara Croft: Relic Run, which is a favourite game. Things have improved, with 3D performance being significantly better, but framerates vary significantly and the game still becomes all but unplayable for brief periods.

What sort of performance are others getting on the Lumia 950 and 950 XL? I know this game is very resource-intensive but it's mostly very smooth on my girlfriend's Galaxy S6 Edge. Is it my phone specifically causing the issue, is it the SnapDragon 810 or is the game just not well-optimised on Windows 10 Mobile?

 

[slysy]

Are you using the stock back cover, or mozo? Does it make any difference if you take off the back cover when playing?

 

[Hildr]

I really don't understand the link with the back cover...
All I know is this game should be really poorly coded since I have the exact same performance with it on my 1520 and my 950XL witch is far better performance-wise (dungeon hunter 5 doesn't show any frame drop on the 950XL where there were a lot on the 1520). So in fact, I think the issue is not from the phone, but just from the app (which is really crap with the new system of lvl, it was far better one year ago). It can't even connect to Facebook account cause it can't resume! I just give up with this game, even if it's the best of its kind.

 

[John McIlhinney]

Are you talking from the perspective of heat dissipation? I currently have a Mozo backplate (switch between back and brown) but I was using the stock backplate for a while before I received the Mozo ones and things were basically the same. I certainly won't use it as a long-term solution but I might try it without the backplate on just to see what happens when the heat generated by the CPU can escape more easily.

Interestingly, while it doesn't always make a huge difference, it does seem to me that the game performs better when I have a small number of other apps running than when I have none. Also, it seems to perform better when I'm connected to a Bluetooth speaker or headphones. I'm very interested to hear from someone who plays the game on a Lumia 950, to see whether there's any difference between the SD808 and SD810.

 

[John McIlhinney]

Your experience with the 1520 does seem to suggest that it's the game rather than the phone that's the issue. I'm not sure whether that's good or bad, because it means that my 950 XL should still perform well with other apps and games but I'm doomed to suffer a less-than-optimal experience with Relic Run unless they actually address performance at some point. It's great that they made the decision to release this game on Windows as well as iOS and Android but it does appear that they've put in far less effort to optimise it on our platform.

By the way, I actually quite like what they've done with the game as far as adding levels and the like. It does make it harder to get items and the like but that adds to the longevity and challenge of the game I think. It does increase the element of grind but there's also more reward, in my opinion any way. That said, the changes are clearly a tactic to get people to spend more money on gems in the game. I can live with that for the sake of getting such a significant title on Windows, but it is then incumbent on the developer to make sure that the game is playable.

 

[John McIlhinney]

Woohoo! Updated to version 1.9.93 last night and it appears that the game finally plays the way it should. I think that it's slightly better visually and the frame-rate is now consistently high. There are still a few stutters here and there but there are on Android too. We'll see what things are like when I get up to riding the motorcycle in the desert again, which is where I really noticed ridiculous performance issues previously. Haven't made it out of the jungle yet since reinstalling.