A High Resolution Timer for Win32

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Author	Eddy Luten
Author Link	Scriptionary.com
Contributors	n/a
Notes
C++, WIN32 only, no explanations provided, simply code.

This article lists the code for creating a high resolution timer for the Microsoft Windows platform. High resolution timers are often used in multimedia and entertainment applications.

1 Timer.h, Timer Prototype
2 Timer.cpp, Timer Source Code
3 Timer Usage Example

Timer.h, Timer Prototype

#ifndef _TIMER_H_
#define _TIMER_H_
 
#ifndef WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN
#	define WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN
#endif
 
#include <windows.h>
 
// Defines and Creates a simple High Resolution Timer
class Timer
{
protected:
	double startTime;
	double endTime;
	bool active;
	LARGE_INTEGER frequency;
	LARGE_INTEGER startCount;
	LARGE_INTEGER endCount;
 
public:
	Timer ( void ); // ctor
	~Timer ( void ){}; // dtor
 
	void Start ( void ); // Starts timer
	void Stop ( void ); // Stops the timer
	void Reset ( void ); // Resets the timer, everything = 0
	double GetTime ( void ); // Time in Seconds
	double GetMilliTime ( void ); // Time in Milliseconds
	double GetMicroTime ( void ); // Time in Microseconds
	bool IsActive ( void ); // Is timer active?
}; // class Timer
 
#endif

Timer.cpp, Timer Source Code

Timer::Timer( void )
{
	this->active = false; // preset
	this->Reset(); // reset / populate the values
	return;
}; // ctor
 
/*************************************************/
 
void Timer::Start ( void )
{
	this->active = true;
	QueryPerformanceCounter(&this->startCount);
	return;
}; // Start
 
/*************************************************/
 
void Timer::Stop ( void )
{
	this->active = false;
	QueryPerformanceCounter(&this->endCount);
	return;
}; // Stop
 
/*************************************************/
 
void Timer::Reset ( void )
{
	if ( this->active ) this->Stop(); // we need to stop
	QueryPerformanceFrequency(&this->frequency); // poll freq
	{
		this->startCount.QuadPart =
		this->endCount.QuadPart	 =
		this->startTime =
		this->endTime = 0;
	}
	this->active = false;
	return;
}; // Reset
 
/*************************************************/
 
bool Timer::IsActive( void )
{
	return this->active;
}; // IsActive
 
/*************************************************/
 
double Timer::GetMicroTime( void )
{
	if(this->active) QueryPerformanceCounter(&endCount);
 
	this->startTime = 
		double (
			this->startCount.QuadPart * 
			( 1000000.0 / this->frequency.QuadPart )
		);
 
	this->endTime =
		double (
			this->endCount.QuadPart * 
			( 1000000.0 / this->frequency.QuadPart )
		);
 
	return double( this->endTime - this->startTime );
}; // GetTime
 
/*************************************************/
 
double Timer::GetMilliTime( void )
{
	return double( this->GetMicroTime() * 0.001 );
}; // GetMilliTime
 
/*************************************************/
 
double Timer::GetTime( void )
{
	return double( this->GetMicroTime() * 0.000001);
}; // GetTime

Timer Usage Example

#include <iostream>
#include "Timer.h"
 
int main( int argc, const char* argv[] )
{
	Timer myTime;
 
	std::cout << "Starting Timer..." << std::endl;
	myTime.Start();
 
	std::cout << "Going to sleep for 5 seconds..." << std::endl;
	Sleep( 5000 ); // or something else for a while
 
	std::cout << "Stopping Timer..." << std::endl;
	myTime.Stop();
 
	std::cout << myTime.GetTime() << " seconds passed" << std::endl;
 
	return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}; // main