5 replies to this topic

[Headkaze]

I am looking for an OpenGL game loop example for Windows. All the ones I've seen are while loops and a message pump which tends to use alot of CPU even for something simple. In OSX we have CVDisplayLinkSetOutputCallback which is a VSync callback. Is there anything like it for Windows? Does anyone have a good example?

[Scourage]

Why don't you use something that abstracts that all away like GLFW. Its lightweight, fast, and cross platform, so your code will work on both a mac and windows (even linux too!). Then your game loop simply becomes:

#include <GL/glfw.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main( void )
{
	 int running = GL_TRUE;
	 // Initialize GLFW
	 if( !glfwInit() )
	 {
		  exit( EXIT_FAILURE );
	 }

	 // Open an OpenGL window
	 if( !glfwOpenWindow( 800,600, 8,8,8,8,24,8, GLFW_WINDOW ) )
	 {
		  glfwTerminate();
		  exit( EXIT_FAILURE );
	 }

	 // Main loop
	 while( running )
	 {
		  // OpenGL rendering goes here...
		  glClear( GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT );

		  //call your game code
		  doSomethingAwesome();
		  render();
		  
		  // Swap front and back rendering buffers
		  glfwSwapBuffers();

		  // Check if ESC key was pressed or window was closed
		  running = !glfwGetKey( GLFW_KEY_ESC ) && glfwGetWindowParam( GLFW_OPENED );
	 }

	 // Close window and terminate GLFW
	 glfwTerminate();

	 // Exit program
	 exit( EXIT_SUCCESS );
};

[phantom]

Headkaze, on 19 February 2012 - 07:52 AM, said:

I am looking for an OpenGL game loop example for Windows. All the ones I've seen are while loops and a message pump which tends to use alot of CPU even for something simple. In OSX we have CVDisplayLinkSetOutputCallback which is a VSync callback. Is there anything like it for Windows? Does anyone have a good example?

If v-sync is enabled then the front/back buffer swap will block until the next vsync on windows.
If you are seeing no blocking then v-sync is disabled, likely set to 'off unless application says otherwise' in the driver control panel, and needs to be switched on. You can either change this setting in the control panel or use the swap control extension to try to enable it for your app.

[dpadam450]

http://steinsoft.net...pets/OpenGL/no7

One thing I do, is because I want my game to take 100% cpu because I want it to run as fast as possible is:

If window is not the front most window, slow it down for my other applications.

if (PeekMessage (&msg, NULL, 0, 0, PM_REMOVE))
{
			/* handle or dispatch messages */
			if (msg.message == WM_QUIT)
			{
				bQuit = TRUE;
			}
			else
			{
				TranslateMessage (&msg);
				DispatchMessage (&msg);
			}
}
else
//Don't do anything if the window isnt in focus
if(GetFocus() == NULL)
{
   Sleep(50);
}
else
{
	   //Main Game Loop

[TraxMate]

This is how my game loop looks like. It's a separate thread created after the GL context has been created. This way I can use GetMessage() instead and VSync wont create a huge input lag since the rendering are separate from the input!

void GameLoop()
{
	 Window.MakeCurrent();

	 while(!Window.Quit)
	 {
		  float StartFrame = Timer.GetElapsedSeconds();

		  if(Window.Resize)
		  {
			   Window.Resize = false;
			   Resize(Window.GetClientWidth(), Window.GetClientHeight());
		  }

		  Input.ProcessInput();
		  Window.RenderFrame();

		  g_FrameTime = Timer.GetElapsedSeconds() - StartFrame;
	 }

	 Window.DestroyCurrent();
	 ExitThread(0);
}

[V-man]

Game's are suppose to use up all the CPU time.
Applications (like CAD) are coded slightly differently and do an update on a WM_PAINT message.

You can of course use sleep() to put your thread to sleep for a set amount of milliseconds. That will reduce CPU usage.