Graphics speed up?

[savage110]

So I have this program that uses alot of animated graphics, and it's very slow. My teacher mentioned something about a graphics speed up, but didn't know how to use it, or if it's something you make in the program or what. So just wondering if there really is something that speeds it up, and if it's something i could use in my program. Thanks!

[dday9]

Well visual basic isn't know for it's outstanding graphics, while it handles graphics, it's kinda poor quality. So Microsoft gives us a few options, the first is to turn the double-buffered property for your form to true. This should reduce some flickering you may get. The second is to us a managed(or unmanaged) graphics wrapper. I tend to use XNA and have a few tutorials in my signature, where Jacob Roman(find him in vb6, games, or chit-chat forum) tends to use DirectX. But what kind of animation are you doing? Is it based on a timer, backgroundworker, or is it a collection of GIF's?

[savage110]

I'm really not totally sure. I have a timer tick start and at every tick a new picture is put onto the formsurface and the old one is covered by the background color (actually this covering comes before i make the new one.) It also could potentially be a slow server, but I don't think that's totally it.

[dday9]

Well if it is being done primarily by a timer, turning double-buffered to true would reduce the flickering effect that I'm sure you're getting. But other than that, you'd have to adjust the interval of the timer. The slower the interval the 'smoother' the graphics appear but the slower the graphics appear, where as a faster interval will cause the graphics to appear less smooth, but the graphics come up quicker. It's sort of a catch-22, you just have to find what interval is ideal and that just takes trial and error.

[savage110]

Could it also be that i have three separate timers all ticking at different intervals? Because when the program runs, it seems like they all are following the speed of the slowest one.

[dday9]

Could it also be that i have three separate timers all ticking at different intervals? Because when the program runs, it seems like they all are following the speed of the slowest one.

Yes. I want you to read this article paying special attention the first example's cons, it's in C# but the same principals apply. That's pretty much what's going on. If you're dealing with a graphics intense program, I suggest looking into XNA. You don't have to create a full blown XNA program, in fact you're able to stick with using a windows form application while also using XNA in that win forms app. Take a look at my example here and Shaggy Hiker's example here.