Re: [boost] Re: date_time high resolution clock for Win32

From: Aaron W. LaFramboise (aaronrabiddog51_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-05-18 06:35:56

Johan Nilsson wrote:

>[sort-of-a-shameless-plug but on-topic]:
>
>http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/04/03/HighResolutionTimer/default.aspx
>
>Questions are welcome.
>
>  
>
Thank you for the excellent and informative article.

This is definitely the sort of thing I had in mind, and you seem to have 
explored it a lot further than I did.

However, encorporating this functionality into Boost date_time may be, 
in some ways, more difficult than it was in time_provider, as Boost 
probably can't do things like creating a background thread to keep the 
time synchronized, and has some additional portability constraints.  I'm 
also concerned by your remarks--as well as other information--that 
suggest that the performance counter may be unsuitable as a general time 
source.

Without having a synchronization monitor thread, it seems like it might 
be a lot more difficult to attempt to synchronize the time, especially 
with regard to intermittant "spikes" caused by certain hardware 
activity.  Perhaps it might be necessary to develop a much more 
substancial clock framework such as your time_provider template for 
Boost in order to accomidate the demands of getting accurate time on 
operating systems such as Windows.  While it may add size, complexity, 
and weight to the library, it might be worth it; what good is a timer 
library that can't accurately tell time?

I'm going to spend the next few days analyzing your code, in particular, 
synchronizer.hpp.

Thanks again,

Aaron W. LaFramboise