Question

In a fairly simple application that I am making, I use many NSTimers, one which runs at a rate of .01 seconds that I use to change the position of multiple images. This causes major lag. How can I fix this? Please explain in detail, as I am fairly new to app dev.

Answer 1

From the NSTimer Docs (emphasis: mine):

A timer is not a real-time mechanism; it fires only when one of the
run loop modes to which the timer has been added is running and able
to check if the timer’s firing time has passed. Because of the various
input sources a typical run loop manages, the effective resolution of
the time interval for a timer is limited to on the order of 50-100
milliseconds. If a timer’s firing time occurs during a long callout or
while the run loop is in a mode that is not monitoring the timer, the
timer does not fire until the next time the run loop checks the timer.
Therefore, the actual time at which the timer fires potentially can be
a significant period of time after the scheduled firing time.

If you want to work at the display frequency, see CADisplayLink.

However, you should first understand where you program spends its time now to understand what makes it slow (profiler).