The best way is to determine the time between each frame and multiply this time with all movements. For example:

timekey := timegettime - oldtime;
oldtime := timekey;

ship.x := ship.x + 10*timekey;

Now the object moves on every computer at every framerate the same way in the same time.

Look at the tutorials (high performance timers) at www.neobrothers.de

Neo

There was a big discussion on this topic in a flipCode forum thread a while back.

In my current project, I was all for having a variable frame rate but have since been converted to using a fixed rate of 30fps.

Neo, your code shown will not work properly. Try this...

timekey := timegettime - oldtime;
oldtime := oldtime + timekey;

What I do with a time delta such as this is to convert it to a floating point value that represents the fractional part of a second. To do this, divide timekey by the number of ticks per seconds.

Well for very perfect movements try this code:

var
Frequency, Current_Time, Last_Time: Int64;
Time_Elapsed , Time_Scale: Double;
Counter_Available: Boolean;

in your init procedure:

Counter_Available := false;
if QueryPerformanceFrequency(frequency) = false then
begin
Last_Time := timeGetTime;
Time_Scale := 0.001;
end
else
begin
Counter_Available := true;
Time_Scale := 1.0 / frequency;
QueryPerformanceCounter(Last_Time);
end;


call this function every frame:

function GetTimeKey: Double;
begin
if Counter_Available then
QueryPerformanceCounter(Current_Time)
else
Current_Time := timeGetTime;

Time_Elapsed := (Current_Time - Last_Time) * Time_Scale;
last_time := current_time;
result := time_elapsed;
end;

Now your result is a number, which you can use to multiplay with your movements and everything works fine.

Neo