Performance Issues

If the platform feels slow rather than broken, the cause is usually the device, the browser, or the connection — in that order.

Slow vs Broken

Broken means pages don’t load or the display never updates. See Game Not Loading and Sync Issues.

Slow means everything works but sluggishly. That’s this article.

Quick Wins

Close other tabs. Browsers share memory across tabs. A machine with forty tabs open and a video conference running has little left for anything else.

Restart the browser. A browser that’s been open for weeks accumulates memory. Restarting it is the single most effective fix.

Restart the machine. Especially a shared classroom computer that nobody has rebooted in months.

Check zoom is 100%. Ctrl+0 / Cmd+0. Extreme zoom levels make rendering work harder.

The Projector Machine

Classroom computers are often old, shared, and never maintained. If the display screen is sluggish but your laptop is fine, the projector machine is the problem.

Options, in order of effort:

Close everything else on it
Restart it before class
Drive the projector from your own laptop instead

The last one solves it permanently and is usually easiest.

Large Games

A game with a lot of content takes marginally longer to load, but shouldn’t be slow in play — the display shows one item at a time.

If a large game is specifically slow while small ones are fine, that’s worth reporting to support with the game’s size.

Word Search Specifically

Word Search renders a 15×15 grid — 225 cells plus labels. On a very old machine this can feel heavier than other formats.

If New round takes a noticeable moment, that’s the grid being generated and checked for accidental word matches. It’s doing real work. A second or two is normal.

Pollster with a Large Class

Pollster updates the display as each vote arrives. With a large class voting simultaneously, that’s a lot of updates in a short window.

If the display stutters during voting, it should settle once the rush passes. Nothing is lost.

If actions take seconds to register, that’s connection latency rather than device performance.

Test by loading any other website. If everything is slow, it’s the connection. See Internet Connection.

Extensions

Ad blockers, privacy tools, and anything that inspects every page add overhead to every interaction.

Test in a private window where extensions are disabled. If it’s noticeably faster, an extension is the cause.

Before a Big Session

If you’re teaching a large group and performance matters:

Restart the projector machine that morning
Close everything except the browser
Use a wired connection if available
Open both screens and run through a few clicks before students arrive

Reporting It

If performance is genuinely poor on a capable machine with a good connection, contact support with:

Which format and roughly how much content
Device and browser
Whether it’s slow everywhere or only in one place
Whether a private window behaves differently

Next Steps

Browser Compatibility — settings and extensions
Internet Connection — connectivity requirements
Display Setup — projector configuration