Simple message problem...

I've been reading a book about how computer games are made, and I came across the "PeekMessage" command for windows programming, and the book said to write it as below, but my compiler (Dev-C++, if that helps) wont accept it when I try use it to process input and logic etc, so, is it a problem with the code, or is it something else???

Code:

---

while(1)
        {
        if (PeekMessage(&msg,NULL,0,0,PM_REMOVE))
                {
                // test if this is a quit
        if (msg.message == WM_QUIT)
          break;
       
                // translate any accelerator keys
                TranslateMessage(&msg);

                // send the message to the window proc
                DispatchMessage(&msg);
                } // end if
   
    // main game processing goes here

---

This is how I always do it:

Code:

---

while (GetMessage (&msg, NULL, 0, 0))
    {
        TranslateMessage(&msg);
        DispatchMessage(&msg);
    }
    return msg.wParam;
}

---

Code:

---

for ( ;; ) {

    if ( PeekMessage ( &msg, NULL, 0, 0, PM_REMOVE ) ) {
       
        if ( msg.message == WM_QUIT ) break;
       
        TranslateMessage ( &msg );
        DispatchMessage ( &msg );
       
    }
   
    else {

        // program code

    }

}

---

Now make sure your compiling it as a Win32 app and not a console app.

Are you getting any errors or what?

[note] The for loop is just a programming preference, while(1) does the same thing.

Here is how I've always done it. (It's very close to Vicious' example).

Code:

---

        CGame myGame;
        // All that windows stuff that is necessary goes here
        myGame.Initialize(); // perform initialization to game objects, and openGL/directX
        while(!done)
        {
                if (PeekMessage(&msg,NULL,0,0,PM_REMOVE))       
                {
                        if (msg.message==WM_QUIT)                               
                        {
                                done=true;                                       
                        }
                        else                                               
                        {
                                TranslateMessage(&msg);                       
                                DispatchMessage(&msg);                       
                        }
                }
                else                                                               
                {
                        delta = calculateDelta();
                        myGame.Render(delta);
                }
        }
        myGame.Close();

---

I create an object (CGame in the above code) to do all the game related stuff. That way it is easy to separate it from the windows initialization stuff. The delta parameter that is passed to the render function is the time elapsed since the last time myGame.Render() was called. You will know why this is necessay as you get further into game programming.

>>the time elapsed since the last time myGame.Render() was called
Can't you calculate that from within Render()? I mean, store the time either as a member variable or as a static variable?