C# - Timer Precision Issue

Timer precision issue doesn't only affect Java, it should affect most programming language. It is because when you pause a thread, it gives away its right and allow the OS to schedule their job.

Thus, Thead.Sleep/Monitor.Wait does not guarantee the sleep time.

To archive high resolution, you can try using multimedia timer such as QueryPerformanceCounter . This is good for perform elapse calculations.

Or you can use timeBeginPeriod to requests a minimum resolution for periodic timers.

For example, to reduce the resolution to 1 ms

[DllImport("winmm.dll")]

internal static extern uint timeBeginPeriod(uint period);

[DllImport("winmm.dll")]

internal static extern uint timeEndPeriod(uint period);

timeBeginPeriod(1);

while(true)

{

Thread.Sleep(1); // will sleep 1ms every time

}

timeEndPeriod(1);

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd757624(v=VS.85).aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms632592(v=VS.85).aspx

http://www.codeguru.com/cpp/w-p/system/timers/article.php/c5759/