Question

Hey guys I am programming for a primitive type board using some assembly and C, consider the board to be aKin to the old school black and white gameboy.

I am running into a problem while writing a game in that there is no backbuffer. when I clear the screen it draws directly to the screen so that the screen truly is cleared, and thus makes anything I draw invisible, because it is immediately cleared in the next pass. So instead of replacing a drawn screen with a new drawn screen, it clears the screen then draws it.

I came up with a hackish solution in where I Limited the rendering to 10 frames per second.
The way I do this is by clearing the screen, drawing the shape, and then burning a loop for however long remains in the 1/10th second. This way whatever is drawn will stay there longer, and be visible longer, allowing the user to see it before it is immediately erased.
i.e.

while (1)
{
    doRender = 1;
    screen_clear();
    draw_circle(x,y,20,1);
    while(doRender)
    {
                // a interrupt will set doRender to 0, thus ending the loop
    }
}

This works!! sort of, it creates a flicker, not horrible, but noticeable to be sure. My game does not require incredible framerates, 10/sec will do.

Does anyone have a better solution to my issue?

Answer 1

Your solution is good. Try optimize it by clearing only the area where the circle has been drawn.