Getting accurate ticks from a timer in C#

Question

I\'m trying to rebuild an old metronome application that was originally written using MFC in C++ to be written in .NET using C#. One of the issues I\'m running into is gett

Answer 1

Another possibility is that there is a bug in WPF implementation of DispatcherTimer (there is a mismatch between milliseconds and ticks causing potential inaccuracy depending on exact process execution time) , as evidenced below:

http://referencesource.microsoft.com/#WindowsBase/Base/System/Windows/Threading/DispatcherTimer.cs,143

class DispatcherTimer
{
    public TimeSpan Interval
    {
        set
        {
            ...
            _interval = value;
            // Notice below bug: ticks1 + milliseconds [Bug1]
            _dueTimeInTicks = Environment.TickCount + (int)_interval.TotalMilliseconds;
        }
    }
}

http://referencesource.microsoft.com/#WindowsBase/Base/System/Windows/Threading/Dispatcher.cs

class Dispatcher
{
    private object UpdateWin32TimerFromDispatcherThread(object unused)
    {
        ...
        _dueTimeInTicks = timer._dueTimeInTicks;
        SetWin32Timer(_dueTimeInTicks);
    }

    private void SetWin32Timer(int dueTimeInTicks)
    {
        ...
        // Notice below bug: (ticks1 + milliseconds) - ticks2  [Bug2 - almost cancels Bug1, delta is mostly milliseconds not ticks]
        int delta = dueTimeInTicks - Environment.TickCount; 
        SafeNativeMethods.SetTimer( 
            new HandleRef(this, _window.Value.Handle),
            TIMERID_TIMERS,
            delta); // <-- [Bug3 - if delta is ticks, it should be divided by TimeSpan.TicksPerMillisecond = 10000]
    }
}

http://referencesource.microsoft.com/#WindowsBase/Shared/MS/Win32/SafeNativeMethodsCLR.cs,505

class SafeNativeMethodsPrivate
{
    ...
    [DllImport(ExternDll.User32, SetLastError = true, ExactSpelling=true, CharSet=System.Runtime.InteropServices.CharSet.Auto)]
    public static extern IntPtr SetTimer(HandleRef hWnd, int nIDEvent, int uElapse, NativeMethods.TimerProc lpTimerFunc);
}

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms644906%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

uElapse [in]
Type: UINT
The time-out value, in milliseconds. // <-- milliseconds were needed eventually