I am new at Windows programming and I tried searching FAQs and previous posts, but I am not sure how to even ask this question.

I need to have the ability to have real time output in a Windows program. The problem is that in the message loop, if there is no message from the OS to my program, the control returns to the OS. What I tried to do was output a continuous series of ellipses that fill the screen and change color and keep recycling. However, the ouput is sporadic. If I move the mouse or press the keyboard then the output comes in much greater bursts.

If it were a DOS program, the ellipses would be displayed to the screen as fast as they could be drawn. In the end, I want to port an extended DOS real time program to WIndows and the program needs to continuously scan HF and VHF radio channels as well as other activities. I aslo want to port a program that runs a meteorological model as fast as possible once the model has been started. I had hoped this would be possible by putting any code that I wanted to continuously execute in a while loop which also contained the standard GetMessage() function so the user could communicate with the program (I do something like that in the real-time DOS versions).

How does one do this in WIndows? It seems the OS decides when it will execute my code and if I am not doing anything in my window (like moving the mouse) the output comes only every once and a while.

I am sorry if this is a stupid question, but it is the most essential part of the functionality of the program I need to develop.

Thanks for any help!