Is it a bad idea to implement a timer loop in Flex?

Question

In our game project we did have a timer loop set to fire about 20 times a second (the same as the application framerate). We use this to move some sprites around. I'm wondering if this could cause problems and we should instead do our updates using an EnterFrame event handler? I get the impression that having a timer loop run faster than the application framerate is likely to cause problems... is this the case? As an update, trying to do it on EnterFrame caused very weird problems. Instead of a frame every 75ms, suddenly it jumped to 25ms. Note, it wasn't just our calculation claimed the framerate was different, suddenly the animations sped up to a crazy rate. JavaScript questions and answers, JavaScript questions pdf, JavaScript question bank, JavaScript questions and answers pdf, mcq on JavaScript pdf, JavaScript questions and solutions, JavaScript mcq Test , Interview JavaScript questions, JavaScript Questions for Interview, JavaScript MCQ (Multiple Choice Questions)

Answer 1

I'd go for the Enter frame, in some special cases it can be useful to have two "loops" one for logic and one for the visuals, but for most games I make I stick to the Enter frame-event listener. Having a separate timer for moving your stuff around is a bit unnecessary since having it set to anything except the framerate would make the motion either jerky or just not visible (since the frame is not redrawn). One thing to consider however is to decouple your logic from the framerate, this is most easily accomplished by using getTimer (available in both as2 and as3) to calculate the time that has expired since the last frame and adjusting the motions or whatever accordingly. A timer is no more reliable than the enter frame event, flash will try to keep up with whatever rate you've set, but if you're doing heavy processing or complex graphics it will slow down, both timers and framerate.