Commonly asked timer question

Many, many, many solutions. The appropriate ones are impossible to tell from the brevity of your post, but here''s what you can look up:
WM_TIMER -- not appropriate for real-time stuff since it''s a low-priority message
multithreading - usually appropriate for real-time stuff, but a huge bag o worms.

I use the GetTickCount() function call to get the current time in milliseconds. It returns a DWORD value. In order to make sure each loop in your game takes at least 30 milliseconds, do this:

void GameLoop() { DWORD delayTime = GetTickCount(); // Do your code here while (GetTickCount() - delayTime <= 30); }

Beware, in the latest Windows versions, the resolution of GetTickCount() is only 10 ms, which means your delay will always fall on the 10 ms marks. You can't have a 5 ms delay for example, but usually you don't want to anyway.

Also, I think it is more common to let the main loop run as fast as possible (no delay), while delaying the particular parts of your code individually. This way your windows messages process as fast as possible also. Example, in code that would animate a sprite:

void Animate() { static DWORD animateDelay = GetTickCount(); if (GetTickCount() - animateDelay >= 30) { // Advance to the next frame of animation, // then reset the timer. animateDelay = GetTickCount(); } }

Todd M. Gillissie

Edited by - Gillissie on May 27, 2001 11:18:05 PM

Edited by - Gillissie on May 27, 2001 11:19:00 PM

just like to say, ive looked how to do delays in all types of ways, but the above use of GetTickCount is the best ive used yet - very usefull

Peek for messages, rather than waiting, while looping to delay. If there is a message then process it, otherwise continue looping.