Constantly invoke a method alongside GTKSharp application

Question

I am creating a real-time action game in GTKSharp (I know, not a good idea). I have a method that I need to constantly call that updates my game window (the images in some buttons) but I can't figure out how.

I tried putting the method in a loop and running the loop in another thread, besides the application thread.

Tried it with Parallel.Invoke (although this just runs one thread after another, it fails to run them simultaneously)


    public static void Main(string[] args) {
        Parallel.Invoke(() => RunGameLoop(), () => RunApp());
    }

    public void RunGameLoop(){
        while(runGame) { //runGame is a bool, I change it to false when I click a button in MyGameWindow
            MyGameWindow.UpdateButtons(); //MyGameWindow is a GTK.Window
        }
    }

    public void RunApp(){
        MyGameWindow.Show();
        Application.Run();
    }

Tried a couple of different ways to separate things in threads (which resulted in this error

Gdk:ERROR:/build/gtk+2.0-AoeliP/gtk+2.0-2.24.32/gdk/gdkregion-generic.c:1110:miUnionNonO: assertion failed: (y1 < y2)

that is followed by a bunch of text)


    public static void Main(string[] args) {
        Thread i = new Thread(new ThreadStart(RunGameLoop));
        Thread l = new Thread(new ThreadStart(RunApp));

        //I also tried with this
        //Thread i = new Thread(RunGameLoop);
        //Thread l = new Thread(RunApp);

        i.Start();
        l.Start();
    }

    public void RunGameLoop(){
        while(runGame) {
            MyGameWindow.UpdateButtons();
        }
    }

    public void RunApp(){
        MyGameWindow.Show();
        Application.Run();
    }

I also tried to use tasks rather than threads (also doesn't work)


    public static void Main(string[] args) {
        Task[] tasks = new Task[2];

        tasks[0] = Task.Run(() => RunGameLoop());
        tasks[1] = Task.Run(() => RunApp());

        Task.WaitAll(tasks);
    }

    public void RunGameLoop(){
        while(runGame) {
            MyGameWindow.UpdateButtons();
        }
    }

    public void RunApp(){
        MyGameWindow.Show();
        Application.Run();
    }


    public static void Main(string[] args) {
        Task t1 = Task.Factory.StartNew(() => RunGameLoop());
        Task t2 = Task.Factory.StartNew(() => RunApp());
        Task.WaitAll(tasks);
    }

    public void RunGameLoop(){
        while(runGame) {
            MyGameWindow.UpdateButtons();
        }
    }

    public void RunApp(){
        MyGameWindow.Show();
        Application.Run();
    }

I have wasted a couple of hours on this issue and I honestly don't know, I could be misunderstanding something about how threading works or how GTKSharp works. I have thought of transferring the project to something proper like Unity but I've wasted a lot of time figuring out GTKSharp.

I am using Monodevelop 7.8.4 (build 2) and the project is a GTK# 2.0 Project.

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered May 10 '20 at 16:12

After a good amount of searching for solutions, I came across this: How do I access GUI (GTK) from multi threads?. So, what I was trying to do was doomed from the beginning. After a bit more time, I found this: Winforms - Invoking a method in another thread which is for WinForms, the GTK equivalent is supposedly GLib.Timeout which I also couldn't get to work.

I guess it is completely impossible in GTK#. I will have to change how my program works.

Constantly invoke a method alongside GTKSharp application

1 Answers1