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Using LESS system resources

VanKurt · 2003-10-24T06:17:09

Hi there! I''ve written a little app that runs invisible (without) window in the back. The intention is to have an application that does actions when special keys are pressed (e.g. F9 for "run notepad"). At the moment the app does nothing. The code looks like this: int WinMain( blablabla ) { while(1) { // Do Nothing } } But when this program is running, the WHOLE COMPUTER gets SLOW. In the task-manager it says that the app is using 99% of the CPU-power (or something like this). What do I have to do to make this app not so "hungry" ??? I mean an app doing nothing (or almost nothing) shouldn''t act like that.... Thanks!!!!

General and Gameplay Programming Programming

Started by VanKurt October 21, 2003 06:52 AM

17 comments, last by VanKurt 20 years, 5 months ago

Anonymous

October 22, 2003 10:21 AM

I read somewhere that games like half life use up 99% of CPU and it is not necessarily a "bad thing"

Kern

124

October 22, 2003 10:41 AM

Every game uses all the cpu time they can get and that''s good, but when they don''t have focus then it''s bad, a game must use a different loop when not in focus to free the cpu when not active.

Anonymous

October 22, 2003 12:07 PM

So can''t you just stop or "pause" the main loop when you''ve lost focus? Wouldn''t that free the CPU up for the other things?

Anonymous

October 22, 2003 06:38 PM

is there a way to let your program test fi it has focus so you can do one thing " on focus" and another off focus?

antareus

576

October 22, 2003 10:18 PM

Hooks are not necessary.

Testing ''do we have focus'' is still the wrong way to approach the problem. This is really just a programing Windows 101 question here. The original poster simply needs to register hotkeys for the keys to watch and process those messages inside the application.

--God has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense.- C.S. Lewis

matias suarez

122

October 23, 2003 03:27 AM

How do you register those hotkeys? i used hooks for it before and it worked ok (yes, i agree that you must be carefull with them) but registered hotkeys sounds a better approach.

antareus

576

October 23, 2003 02:39 PM

RegisterHotKey();
UnregisterHotKey();

MSDN is your friend.

--God has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense.- C.S. Lewis

Timbatron

122

October 23, 2003 07:36 PM

Sure you could do it that way, but it''d be a million times easier to use a GetKeyAsync or whatever its called. Sure it won''t be "right," but it isn''t going to use any processor at all as long as it''s calling Sleep(). You can then use a PeekMessage inside the main loop.

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VanKurt

133

Author

October 24, 2003 06:17 AM

Wow! So many good ideas! Thanks people!
I''ll have a look at all of them...

THANKS!! :-D

Using LESS system resources

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