Accurate Windows timer? System.Timers.Timer() is limited to 15 msec

Question

I need an accurate timer to interface a Windows application to a piece of lab equipment.

I used System.Timers.Timer() to create a timer that ticks every 10 msec, but

Answer 1

The limitation is given by the systems heartbeat. This typically defaults to 64 beats/s which is 15.625 ms. However there are ways to modify these system wide settings to achieve timer resolutions down to 1 ms or even to 0.5 ms on newer platforms:

1. Going for 1 ms resolution by means of the multimedia timer interface (timeBeginPeriod()):

   See Obtaining and Setting Timer Resolution.

2. Going to 0.5 ms resolution by means of NtSetTimerResolution():

   See Inside Windows NT High Resolution Timers.

You may obtain 0.5 ms resolution by means of the hidden API NtSetTimerResolution().

I've given all the details in this SO answer.