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

Off the top of my head, I could suggest running a thread that mostly sleeps, but when it wakes, it checks a running QueryPerformanceCounter and occasionally triggers your procedure.

Answer 2

There's a nice write up at the MSDN: Implement a Continuously Updating, High-Resolution Time Provider for Windows

Here's the sample source code for the article (C++).

Answer 3

You need to use a high resolution timer such as QueryPerformanceCounter

Answer 4

On surface of it the answer is something like "high resolution timer" however this is incorrect. The answer requires a regular tick generation and the windows high res performance counter API does not generate such a tick.

I know this is not answer inself but the popular answer to this question so far is wrong enough for me to feel that a simple comment on it is not enough.

Answer 5

In System.Diagnostics, you can use the Stopwatch class.

Answer 6

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.