Why does my online invitation card lag, and which phones run it best?

Why does a card lag at all?

A card is not a video. Your phone draws it live: the text and the colours, the moving layers behind it (petals, snow, fireworks, confetti), the opening, and the turn between pages. Each of those is work for the phone's processor and its graphics chip, and a phone with little memory or an old chip can fall behind and drop frames. That is what you feel as lag.

We keep the work small on purpose: layers that are off the screen are not drawn, the moving layers are drawn in a way that costs little, and the heaviest pieces only run while you can see them. A card made this way still asks more than a still picture, which is the price of an opening and effects.

Is it slow because of my internet?

Sometimes, and it looks different. A slow connection makes a card wait before it starts, not stutter once it is running. A card with sound first downloads its music and effects behind a loading screen that shows how much has come, of how much, and how fast. When that screen is slow, it is your connection. When the card is open and the animation judders, it is your phone.

Which devices run cards best?

• Recent iPhones and iPads: smooth, in our experience, even with the biggest effects.
• Recent mid-range and high-end Android phones with a few gigabytes of memory: smooth for nearly every template.
• Laptops and desktops from the last several years, in an up-to-date browser: smooth.
• Older and entry-level Android phones, especially with very little memory: they can stutter on the heaviest openings and layers. The card is still usable, and the site notices when a phone struggles and draws a lighter version.

What does the site do for a phone that struggles?

If your phone has little memory or few processor cores, has data saver on, or keeps drawing slow frames, the site switches to a lighter way of drawing for that visit. The glows and shimmers that repaint a big area hold still, soft blurs become sharp, and the moving layers use about half as many pieces. The card keeps its look and its opening; it just does less behind the scenes.

What can a guest do if a card lags?

1. Open the link in your phone's main browser (Chrome or Safari) instead of the small browser inside a chat app, which can have less memory to use.
2. Close other apps and browser tabs, so the card has the memory to itself.
3. Turn off battery saver or low power mode for a moment: these slow the processor on purpose.
4. Update your browser and your phone's system, if an update is waiting.
5. Reload the card once. A phone that was busy when the page opened often runs it well the second time.

What can the person who made the card do?

• Choose a lighter template if many guests are on older phones: the free templates have no opening, no moving layer and no music, so they are the lightest to open.
• Lower the "Moving effects" setting in the editor, which gives the moving layer fewer pieces.
• Keep a page short rather than putting every section on one page; a long page asks for more of the phone.
• Check the card yourself on an older phone before you send it widely, and see how music and sound effects work when you add them.

Will an opening animation or sound make it slower?

An opening runs for a few seconds, once, and then it is gone, so it rarely changes how the card feels afterwards. Music and sound effects are downloaded before the opening can be tapped, so they play on time. The long-running cost is the layer that moves behind the card the whole time you read it, like snow or fireworks, which is why those are drawn in the cheapest way we know and stop when they are off the screen.

Is it a problem with the card, or with my phone?

A quick test: open another card on the same phone, or the same card on another device. If every animated card stutters on your phone and the same cards are smooth on a friend's, it is the phone. If only one card does, tell us which template and phone it was on from the feedback page and we will look at it. You can see all the templates in the store and try them with the test card before you decide.

Questions