Question

I’m create a game using system("cls") and printf.
I have a two-dimension array of character for the field.
I refresh the screen every 0.5 sec and display the whole field but the screen flashes badly.
Is there anyway I could make it smooth.
My OS is Windows.

Answer 1

Use ncurses (or pdcurses, might be easier to set up on Windows.) If you can’t, then don’t clear the screen, as that causes flicker. Instead, position the cursor to the top-left (0, 0) again and then draw. To position the cursor at 0, 0, you can do:

#include <windows.h>
// ...
HANDLE handle = GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE); 
COORD position = {0, 0};
SetConsoleCursorPosition(handle, position);