What is the best, most accurate timer in C++?

Question

What is the best, most accurate timer in C++?

Answer 1

The answer to this is platform-specific. The operating system is responsible for keeping track of timing and consequently, the C++ language itself provides no language constructs or built-in functions for doing this.

However, here are some resources for platform-dependent timers:

• Windows API - SetTimer: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms644906(v=vs.85).aspx
• Unix - setitimer: http://linux.die.net/man/2/setitimer

A cross-platform solution might be boost::asio::deadline_timer.