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

Question

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

Answer 1

In C++11 you can portably get to the highest resolution timer with:

#include 
#include 
#include "chrono_io"

int main()
{
    typedef std::chrono::high_resolution_clock Clock;
    auto t1 = Clock::now();
    auto t2 = Clock::now();
    std::cout << t2-t1 << '\n';
}

Example output:

74 nanoseconds

"chrono_io" is an extension to ease I/O issues with these new types and is freely available here.

There is also an implementation of available in boost (might still be on tip-of-trunk, not sure it has been released).