c# - Removing the delay after KeyDown event?

Question

When I hold a key in my game to move my player:

public void MainForm_KeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
{
    if (e.KeyCode == Keys.Up)
    {
        Player.MoveUp();
    }
}

The player instantly moves one step as soon as I press the down arrow, and then pauses for a short duration before starting to smoothly move again. Why's this? How can I prevent it?

Answer 1

The answer in the proposed duplicate is incorrect, unfortunately. It doesn't ignore repeated KeyDown events, and so will gradually increase the "delta" value in the direction being handled by each key case. It also doesn't respond to the keypress immediately (i.e. no action happens until the first timer tick).

This answer to Holding Arrow Keys Down For Character Movement C# .Net ISSUES explains how to ignore the subsequent KeyDown events, but doesn't explain how then your character would move.

In other words, I couldn't find a duplicate question that actually correctly answers your question. So…

The basic technique you want to do is:

1. Don't move on the actual key input. Instead, generate your own timing logic that will move the object.
2. Instead of using the KeyDown event to actually move the object, use it to set a movement direction, which is then processed by your timing logic.

There are a variety of ways to accomplish this. One version would look like this:

private bool _moveUp;
private bool _moveDown;
private bool _moveLeft;
private bool _moveRight;

// You can add the Timer in the Winforms Designer instead if you like;
// The Interval property can be configured there at the same time, along
// with the Tick event handler, simplifying the non-Designer code here.
private System.Windows.Forms.Timer _movementTimer = new Timer { Interval = 100 };

public MainForm()
{
    InitializeComponent();

    _movementTimer.Tick += movementTimer_Tick;
}

private void movementTimer_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    _DoMovement();
}

private void _DoMovement()
{
    if (_moveLeft) Player.MoveLeft();
    if (_moveRight) Player.MoveRight();
    if (_moveUp) Player.MoveUp();
    if (_moveDown) Player.MoveDown();
}

// You could of course override the OnKeyDown() method instead,
// assuming the handler is in the Form subclass generating the
// the event.
public void MainForm_KeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
{
    if (e.IsRepeat)
    {
        // Ignore key repeats...let the timer handle that
        return;
    }

    switch (e.KeyCode)
    {
    case Keys.Up:
        _moveUp = true;
        break;
    case Keys.Down:
        _moveDown = true;
        break;
    case Keys.Left:
        _moveLeft = true;
        break;
    case Keys.Right:
        _moveRight = true;
        break;
    }

    _DoMovement();
    _movementTimer.Start();
}

public void MainForm_KeyUp(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
{
    switch (e.KeyCode)
    {
    case Keys.Up:
        _moveUp = false;
        break;
    case Keys.Down:
        _moveDown = false;
        break;
    case Keys.Left:
        _moveLeft = false;
        break;
    case Keys.Right:
        _moveRight = false;
        break;
    }

    if (!(_moveUp || _moveDown || _moveLeft || _moveRight))
    {
        _movementTimer.Stop();
    }
}

Do note that the timer objects in .NET have limited resolution. I show an interval of 100 ms (10 times per second) above (same as in the other question's answer), and this is about as frequent an update as you're going to reliably get. Even then, the timer's Tick event may not (and probably won't) be raised on exactly 100 ms intervals. There will be some variation back and forth. But it will be close enough for a basic game.

If you need more precision than that, you will have to implement your own state-polling-and-animation loop somewhere. That's a whole other ball o' wax. :)