Cross-platform HiResTimer

Published November 10, 2007
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It's been a while since I've updated this, I'll make an effort to do so more often.

If anyone reading this has read OpenGL Game Programming or Beginning OpenGL Game Programming, you may remember the game timer class that is used in the source code by Dave Astle.

I've just spent a little while making this work on Linux by reimplementing QueryPerformanceFrequency, and QueryPerformanceTimer as private methods the code for these functions has been adapted from the equivalents in the Wine implementation.

I haven't tried recompiling on Windows yet, but I assume it will work as I haven't changed any of the Windows code. Anyway, here it is, I hope it's useful for someone:

/**************************************************************************** HiResTimer.h Cross-platform implementation of the HiResTimer originally written by Dave Astle for the book OpenGL Game Programming. Author		: Luke Benstead Wrapper for the high-resolution timer. Can't be used (on Windows) if the hi-res timer doesn't exist.*****************************************************************************/#ifndef __TIMER_H_INCLUDED__#define __TIMER_H_INCLUDED__#ifdef WIN32#include #endif#ifdef unix	#include 	/*		This is the definition of LARGE_INTEGER		for unix platforms only, Windows already has		this defined.	*/	typedef union _LARGE_INTEGER	{	  struct	  {		unsigned long LowPart;		long HighPart;	  };	  struct	  {		unsigned long LowPart;		long HighPart;	  } u;	  long long QuadPart;	} LARGE_INTEGER;	//This is the number of ticks per second for	//unix platforms	const long TicksPerSecond = 10000000;#endifclass HiResTimer{public:/***************************************************************************** Init() If the hi-res timer is present, the tick rate is stored and the function returns true. Otherwise, the function returns false, and the timer should not be used.*****************************************************************************/	bool Init()	{		if (!QueryPerformanceFrequency(&m_ticksPerSecond))		{			// system doesn't support hi-res timer			return false;		}		else		{			QueryPerformanceCounter(&m_startTime);			return true;		}	} // end Init()	float GetElapsedSeconds(unsigned long elapsedFrames = 1)	{		static LARGE_INTEGER s_lastTime = m_startTime;		LARGE_INTEGER currentTime;		QueryPerformanceCounter(&currentTime);		float seconds =  ((float)currentTime.QuadPart - (float)s_lastTime.QuadPart) / (float)m_ticksPerSecond.QuadPart;		// reset the timer		s_lastTime = currentTime;		return seconds;	} // end GetElapsedSeconds()/*************************************************************************** GetFPS() Returns the average frames per second over elapsedFrames, which defaults to one. If this is not called every frame, the client should track the number of frames itself, and reset the value after this is called.***************************************************************************/	float GetFPS(unsigned long elapsedFrames = 1)	{		static LARGE_INTEGER s_lastTime = m_startTime;		LARGE_INTEGER currentTime;		QueryPerformanceCounter(&currentTime);		float fps = (float)elapsedFrames * (float)m_ticksPerSecond.QuadPart / ((float)currentTime.QuadPart - (float)s_lastTime.QuadPart);		// reset the timer		s_lastTime = currentTime;		return fps;	} // end GetFPS/*************************************************************************** LockFPS() Used to lock the frame rate to a set amount. This will block until enough time has passed to ensure that the fps won't go over the requested amount. Note that this can only keep the fps from going above the specified level; it can still drop below it. It is assumed that if used, this function will be called every frame. The value returned is the instantaneous fps, which will be <= targetFPS.***************************************************************************/	float LockFPS(unsigned char targetFPS)	{		if (targetFPS == 0)		targetFPS = 1;		static LARGE_INTEGER s_lastTime = m_startTime;		LARGE_INTEGER currentTime;		float   fps;		// delay to maintain a constant frame rate		do {		QueryPerformanceCounter(&currentTime);		fps = (float)m_ticksPerSecond.QuadPart/((float)(currentTime.QuadPart - s_lastTime.QuadPart));		} while (fps > (float)targetFPS);		// reset the timer		s_lastTime = m_startTime;		return fps;	} // end LockFPS()private:#ifdef unix	/*		These next 2 functions are reimplementations of the Windows		functions of the same name for unix. If we are compiling		on Windows these 2 methods will not be compiled and the		Windows built-in ones will be used instead.	*/	bool QueryPerformanceFrequency(LARGE_INTEGER* frequency)	{		frequency->QuadPart = TicksPerSecond;		return true;	}	bool QueryPerformanceCounter(LARGE_INTEGER* currentTime)	{		unsigned long long Ticks1601To1970 = (369 * 365 + 89) * 86400 * (unsigned long long) TicksPerSecond;		struct timeval now;		gettimeofday( &now, 0 );		currentTime->QuadPart = now.tv_sec * TicksPerSecond + Ticks1601To1970;		currentTime->QuadPart += now.tv_usec * 10;		return true;	}#endif	LARGE_INTEGER   m_startTime;	LARGE_INTEGER   m_ticksPerSecond;};#endif
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Comments

Evil Steve
Looks good. However, are you aware that QueryPerformanceCounter has a lot of issues on Windows? Particularly on dual core CPUs, and variable frequency CPUs (I.e. laptops)?

In my code, I just use timeGetTime(), since it's usually accurate enough. I only fall back to QPC if it's a very short time, and even then, there's a fair bit of validation done to the results from it.
November 10, 2007 08:12 AM
Kazade
No I didn't realize that, but I can see why there could be problems, thanks for the heads up! [smile]
November 10, 2007 03:22 PM
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