class MASKING_DLL_DECLSPEC Timer

The timer system.

Public Methods

static void Lock()

Locks all the static timer functions and variables.

static int Check()

Checks if an installed timer has ticked.

static void Update(int timerID)

Updates the timer with the passed ID.

static void ResetFrameSkip()

Resets the frame skipping counters for all timers.

static int Install(int interval)

Attempts to install a timer that will tick at the specified interval.

static int InstallEx(int bps)

Attempts to install a timer that will tick at the specified frequency.

static void Adjust(int timerID, int interval)

Changes the speed of a timer.

static void AdjustEx(int timerID, int bps)

Changes the speed of a timer.

static void Kill(int timerID)

Stops a timer with the given ID

Documentation

The timer system. The timer class is not really a proper class. It is just a bunch of static functions which provide basic timer functionality at a level just slightly above the level of the underlaying Allegro timer functions. It can install up to 8 separate timers (more than anyone should ever need), it has wrapper functions for the Allegro timer functions and a nice little function for checking when a timer has ticked.

static void Lock()

Locks all the static timer functions and variables. This is necessary on some platforms. This should be called at the beginning of the program and is called by the InstallMASkinG() function right after installing the Allegro timer module.

static int Check()

Checks if an installed timer has ticked. If it has it returns the timer's ID otherwise it returns -1.

static void Update(int timerID)

Updates the timer with the passed ID. It does so by decrementing the appropriate timer variable and should be called whenever Check() returns a value other than -1. It should be passed the value Check() returns.

static void ResetFrameSkip()

Resets the frame skipping counters for all timers. Check() among other things also counts how many frames are waiting to be processed and if this number goes over a certain threshold (defined in the Settings class) it skips frames. This function resets this counter.

Typically the above three functions are used together in the main loop like this:

      int timerID = -1;
      while (!done) {
         while (timerID = Timer::Check()) {
			switch (timerID) {
               case 0:             suppose 0 is the ID of the main logic timer
                  DoLogic();
                  break;

               case 1:             supopse 1 is the ID of the timer used to measure FPS
                  MeasureFPS();
                  break;

               case 2:
                  ...
                  ...
            }

		    Timer::Update(timerID);
         }

         Timer::ResetFrameSkip();
         Render();
      }

The dialog manager does roughly something like this so unless you're not using the dialog manager, you don't really need to know about this.

static int Install(int interval)

Attempts to install a timer that will tick at the specified interval. Interval is the time between timer ticks in milisecond. For example if you want the timer to tick once per second you would pass 1000 to this function. Returns the ID of the installed timer or -1 if it fails to install a timer. You are required to remember the ID because you need to know it to be able to detect a timer tick and to change and kill the timer.

static int InstallEx(int bps)

Attempts to install a timer that will tick at the specified frequency. Frequency is in beats per second. So if you want a timer that ticks once per second you can install it by passing 1 to this function.

static void Adjust(int timerID, int interval)

Changes the speed of a timer. The first parameter should be the ID that was returned by the Install() or InstallEx() functions. The second parameter is the interval between timer ticks.

static void AdjustEx(int timerID, int bps)

Changes the speed of a timer. The first parameter should be the ID that was returned by the Install() or InstallEx() functions. The second parameter is the desired timer frequency.

static void Kill(int timerID)

Stops a timer with the given ID

This class has no child classes.

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