Sync
Table of contents
What is sync?
As mentioned before, you could manage your own frame buffering with MLX, however this is fairly tedious and time consuming. Besides, we use more memory and our frames need to constantly be FULLY updated. This is not very efficient hence we need to avoid it at all costs.
From the 2020 MLX version, you will be able to synchronize your own frames, which should make the hacky multiple images for screen buffering no longer required.
Using sync
We have three defines that we need to understand first:
#define MLX_SYNC_IMAGE_WRITABLE 1
#define MLX_SYNC_WIN_FLUSH_CMD 2
#define MLX_SYNC_WIN_CMD_COMPLETED 3
int mlx_sync(int cmd, void *ptr);
mlx_sync ought to be called with the defined command codes. The first one, MLX_SYNC_IMAGE_WRITABLE will buffer all subsequential calls to an image (ptr is a pointer to the MLX image object). If you want to propagate changes, you will have to flush the window in which the image is present, using MLX_SYNC_WIN_FLUSH_CMD and the window you want to flush as a ptr.
Test your skills!
Now that you have a faint idea of what mlx_sync can do, grab your previous tiny circle-game that you made in loops and add mlx_sync to your rendering!