Buffered and Immediate Data

DirectInput supplies two types of data: buffered and immediate. Buffered data is a record of events that are stored until an application retrieves them. Immediate data is a snapshot of the current state of a device.

You might use immediate data in an application that is concerned only with the current state of a device - for example, a flight combat simulation that responds to the current position of the joystick and the state of one or more buttons. Buffered data might be the better choice where events are more important than states - for example, in an application that responds to movement of the mouse and button clicks. You can also use both types of data, as you might, for example, if you wanted to get immediate data for joystick axes but buffered data for the buttons.

For examples of retrieving buffered data, see IDirectInputDevice8::GetDeviceData.

See also:

• Time Stamps and Sequence Numbers

• Mouse Data

• Keyboard Data

• Joystick Data