Multiple Forms and a Single Update,Will it work?

Question

I need to make an application in .NET CF with different/single forms with a lot of drawing/animation on each forms.I would prefer to have a single update[my own for state management and so on] function so that i can manage the different states, so that my [J2ME Gaming Code] will work without much changes.I have came to some possible scenarios. Which of the one will be perfect?

1. Have a single form and add/delete the controls manually , then use any of the gamelooping tricks.
2. Create different forms with controls and call update and application.doEvents() in the main thread.[ while(isAppRunning){ UPDATE() Application.DoEvents() }
3. Create a update - paint loop on each of the form as required.
4. Any other ideas.

Please give me suggestion regarding this

Answer 1

If its a game then i'd drop most of the forms and work with the bare essentials, work off a bitmap if possible and render that by either overriding the main form's paint method or a control that resides within it (perhaps a panel). That will give you better performance.

The main issue is that the compact framework isn't really designed for a lot of UI fun you don't get double-buffering for free like in full framework, proper transparency is a bitch to do with WinForm controls and if you hold onto to the UI thread for a little too long you'll get serious rendering glitches. Hell you might even get those if you do too much on background threads! :O

You're never going to get optimal performance from explicitly calling Application.DoEvents, my rule of thumb is to only use that when trouble-shooting or writing little hacks in the UI.

It might be worth sticking the game on a background thread and then calling .Invoke on the control to marshal back to the main UI thread to update your display leaving the UI with plenty of time to respond while also handling user input. User input is another reason I avoid normal winform controls, as mobile devices generally don't have many keys it's very useful to be able to remap them so I generally avoid things like TextBoxes that have preset key events/responses.

I'd also avoid using different forms as showing a new form can provide a subtle pause, I generally swap out controls to a main form to avoid this issue when writing business software.

At the end of the day it's probably worth experimenting with various techniques to see what works out for the best. Also see if you can get any tips from people who develop games on CF as I generally only do business software.

HTH!