game loop

There are many articles on game loops, many require extra text to explain how it works. In this article I would like to produce self descriptive code with good naming conventions and comments that stand on their own without extra documentation.

Before we get started, make sure you can at least understand the basics of c++ code, also read Glen's article on this topic first.

    
#include 
#include 
#include 

/* game loop
 *
 * description:
 * 		a game loop that updates the game state at fixed time intervals while also rendering as fast as possible.
 *
 * remarks:
 * 		all time units are seconds
 *
 * design:
 * 		the fundamental idea is that during the previous iteration (PI) time has passed. Now during the current iteration (CI),
 * 		based on the PI's duration, we retroactively apply updates until we have "caught up" our state.
 *
 * 		right before a new iteration commences PI becomes CI, and we are now in the new CI.
 *
 *  author:
 *  	cuppajoeman (2023)
 */

// All time is measured in seconds

double time_elapsed_since_start_of_program = 0;

// N iterations per second
double update_rate_hz = 60.0d;
// 1/N seconds per iteration
double time_between_state_update = 1.0d / update_rate_hz;

double time_elapsed_since_last_state_update = 0;

bool quit_requested = false;

void update(double time_since_last_update) {
	printf("doing update\n");
}

void render() {
	//printf("doing rendering\n");
}

int main() {

	if (!glfwInit()) {
        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
	}

	bool first_iteration = true;
	bool first_update = true;

	double time_at_start_of_iteration_last_iteration = -1.0d;
	double duration_of_last_iteration = -1.0d;

	while (!quit_requested) {

		double time_at_start_of_iteration = glfwGetTime(); // (T)

		if (first_iteration) {
			// The last few lines of this iteration are next loops last iteration.
			first_iteration = false;
			time_at_start_of_iteration_last_iteration = time_at_start_of_iteration; // (C)
			time_elapsed_since_last_state_update = time_at_start_of_iteration; // (F): Pretend an update has occurred at time 0 for bootstrapping purposes
			continue;
		}

		if (time_at_start_of_iteration >= 10) {
			quit_requested = true;
		}

		// Note that this measures how long it takes for the code to start at (T) and arrive back at (T)
		// (G): Due to (C) tesli == 0 on the second iteration
		duration_of_last_iteration = time_at_start_of_iteration - time_at_start_of_iteration_last_iteration;

		// None of the updates that could have happened during the last iteration have been applied
		// This is because last iteration, we retroactively applied last last iterations updates
		time_elapsed_since_last_state_update += duration_of_last_iteration;

		// since the value of teslsu is only updated by (E), this would always be false, but (F) bootstraps the process
		bool enough_time_for_updates = time_elapsed_since_last_state_update >= time_between_state_update;

		// Due to the (G), an update could only happen starting from the 3rd iteration
		if (enough_time_for_updates) {

			// retroactively apply updates that should have occurred during previous iterations
			double time_remaining_to_fit_updates = time_elapsed_since_last_state_update;
			bool enough_time_to_fit_update = true;

			while (enough_time_to_fit_update) {
				update(time_between_state_update);
				time_remaining_to_fit_updates -= time_between_state_update;
				enough_time_to_fit_update = time_remaining_to_fit_updates >= time_between_state_update ;
			}
			time_elapsed_since_last_state_update = time_remaining_to_fit_updates;
		}

		render();

		// With respect to the start of the next iteration, the code down here is previous iteration.
		time_at_start_of_iteration_last_iteration = time_at_start_of_iteration;

	}

    glfwTerminate();
    exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}