"Emulating" Application.Run using Application.DoEvents

Posted by Luca on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Luca
Published on 2010-03-30T17:35:36Z Indexed on 2010/03/30 17:43 UTC
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I'm getting in trouble. I'm trying to emulate the call Application.Run using Application.DoEvents... this sounds bad, and then I accept also alternative solutions to my question...

I have to handle a message pump like Application.Run does, but I need to execute code before and after the message handling. Here is the main significant snippet of code.

// Create barrier (multiple kernels synchronization)
sKernelBarrier = new KernelBarrier(sKernels.Count);

foreach (RenderKernel k in sKernels) {
    // Create rendering contexts (one for each kernel)
    k.CreateRenderContext();
    // Start render kernel kernels
    k.mThread = new Thread(RenderKernelMain);
    k.mThread.Start(k);
}

while (sKernelBarrier.KernelCount > 0) {
    // Wait untill all kernel loops has finished
    sKernelBarrier.WaitKernelBarrier();
    // Do application events
    Application.DoEvents();
    // Execute shared context services
    foreach (RenderKernelContextService s in sContextServices)
        s.Execute(sSharedContext);

    // Next kernel render loop
    sKernelBarrier.ReleaseKernelBarrier();
}

This snippet of code is execute by the Main routine. Pratically I have a list of Kernel classes, which runs in separate threads, these threads handle a Form for rendering in OpenGL. I need to synchronize all the Kernel threads using a barrier, and this work perfectly. Of course, I need to handle Form messages in the main thread (Main routine), for every Form created, and indeed I call Application.DoEvents() to do the job.

Now I have to modify the snippet above to have a common Form (simple dialog box) without consuming the 100% of CPU calling Application.DoEvents(), as Application.Run does.

The goal should be to have the snippet above handle messages when arrives, and issue a rendering (releasing the barrier) only when necessary, without trying to get the maximum FPS; there should be the possibility to switch to a strict loop to render as much as possible.

How could it be possible?

Note: the snippet above must be executed in the Main routine, since the OpenGL context is created on the main thread. Moving the snippet in a separated thread and calling Application.Run is quite unstable and buggy...

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