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I have a scenario where I need to continuously update the UI within a loop, but I'm experiencing performance and responsiveness issues. The loop includes frequent UI updates using Invoke calls and a Thread.Sleep delay. However, this approach leads to flickering and a laggy user experience.

Here's a simplified version of the code snippet I'm using:

while (true)
{
    button.Invoke((MethodInvoker)(() =>
    {
        // UI updates and conditions
    }));
    Thread.Sleep(10);
}

I'm looking for suggestions on how to optimize the performance and responsiveness in this scenario. Specifically, I would like to:

Improve the responsiveness of the UI during the loop execution. Minimize flickering caused by frequent UI updates. Replace the use of Thread.Sleep with a more efficient and non-blocking delay mechanism. Ensure smooth and efficient execution without impacting the overall application performance. I would greatly appreciate any advice, best practices, or code examples on how to achieve these optimizations. Thank you in advance!

Frost Dream
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    You don't show enough code to say much more than this. Assuming that the code you show is in an event handler, change the handler from `private void` to `private async void` (if your code is in a non-event handler function, make is `async` but have it return a `Task` or `Task`). Then chance your `Sleep` call to `await Task.Delay(10);` – Flydog57 Jul 02 '23 at 19:41
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    Also, read up on using `async` programming in general and in Windows Forms in particular. You may be able to get better result with asynchrony than with a 10 ms While loop – Flydog57 Jul 02 '23 at 19:43
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    *The loop includes frequent UI updates*: define *frequent*. `Invoke()` is synchronous, so you're just flooding the UI Thread in your loop. Assuming this code is run from a Thread other the UI Thread, you didn't describe what you're actually doing there or what happens when you invoke. The comment you left there doesn't say much (but any *condition* should have been evaluated earlier) -- Specify whether you're starting a Thread, running a Task or you're handling an event raised in a ThreadPool Thread by third-party code – Jimi Jul 02 '23 at 19:43
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    In general, you should not be updating everything every x milliseconds. For many apps you should update what changed, in response to actual changes. For real time apps including games you might need to update the world every x ms, but then you'd probably want a timer event firing the "update visuals" task while other processing is done in worker threads. For better advice edit your question to add more information about your specific use case. – Dave S Jul 02 '23 at 20:12
  • [This post](https://stackoverflow.com/a/66969968/2638227) may be useful. It shows the usage of `IProgress` interface. – Mustafa Özçetin Jul 02 '23 at 21:26

1 Answers1

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Is this WPF or what? If it is WPF then make a property change notification for the parameters to be refreshed when they are altered, this will then update the UI automagically.

In other systems you will need to provide your code of the relevant page it is updating etc.

Regardless, try only updating elements that need updating, not all elements every x ms

Slipoch
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