when is the right time to draw

Question

hi

i just finished essential part of my own personal 2d engine in c++ and i'm kinda deciding how to complete the part where it is actually supposed to display everything on the screen, namely when do I call that function which does the job. I don't have much idea of how does the graphic card work, my biggest experience is calling bios graphic services to write some stuff on the screen. Could you give me a hint on this pls? Or maybe some keywords I should try to google?

Answer 1

Are you rendering to a back buffer and then trying to display that? Common terminology includes "flip" (as in page flipping) or "present". If your copying from a back buffer to the screen, it might also be a "blit" (or blt) from "bit-block transfer".

Answer 2

look up render loop.

In a game, you will do it in a loop. You can also look up game loop which is a related concept if you're working on a game.