How do I get a true idle loop with c# in .NET?

Velius

I've figured out how to use the Application.Idle event handler. The only problem I am having is that the application is by default *waiting* for messages before going to idle like usual. When I used the Win32 API i alwasy made my program bypass to idle time if there was no message by using PeekMessage(). How do I get my C# application to behave this way. I can't hope to make a game function properly if it *waits* for messages before idling. Any help would be appreciated Also to note, I just recently adopted C#. I'm a diehard C++ guy. Hate some of it's limitations (no default parameters ) but I like it's demand for cleanliness.

Color is an integer that starts off at 0 and is supposed to cycle to white. so the window should be very colorful and changing with each idle loop.

Code used to tranform and integer into a Color:

Color IntToColor(int c)

{

int r, g, b;

r = c >> 16;

g = (c >> 8) - (r << 8);

b = c - (g << 8) - (r << 16);

return Color.FromArgb(0, r, g, b);

}

My code:

Application.Idle += new EventHandler(MainForm_Idle);

// As stated above this handler won't execute until some sort of other event raises (mouse, keyboard, etc)

void MainForm_Idle(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

gfx.Clear(color);

gfx.Swap();

if(color < 0xffffff) color++;

}

nobugz

The equivalent of PeekMessage() is Application.DoEvents(). You could modify your Main() function in Program.cs like this:

[STAThread]
static void Main() {
Application.EnableVisualStyles();
Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
Form1 f1 = new Form1();
f1.FormClosed += QuitLoop;
f1.Show();
do {
Application.DoEvents();
// Do your stuff to implement the main game loop
//...
// Yield the CPU
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(1);
} while (!mQuit);
}
private static bool mQuit;
private static void QuitLoop(object sender, FormClosedEventArgs e) {
mQuit = true;
}

Use Sleep(0) if you want all the CPU cycles you can get.

Velius

That looks very much like the kind of loop control I'm use to. The help is very much appreciated

Ðãv? S. Â???????

Use Sleep(0) if you want all the CPU cycles you can get.

Could you explain to me what you mean by that I'm rather curious.

nobugz

Sleep(0) only yields the CPU if there is another thread ready to run. CPU utilization will jump to 100%. Sleep(1) always yields, CPU utilization is bounded.

Ðãv? S. Â???????

Thanks.

How do I get a true idle loop with c# in .NET?

Re: Windows Forms General How do I get a true idle loop with c# in .NET?

Re: Windows Forms General How do I get a true idle loop with c# in .NET?

Re: Windows Forms General How do I get a true idle loop with c# in .NET?

Re: Windows Forms General How do I get a true idle loop with c# in .NET?

Re: Windows Forms General How do I get a true idle loop with c# in .NET?