How to get precise time? e.g. time_precise()

[EricTbone]

I'm trying to synchronize an event inside Reaper with an event outside it.

The external event occurs at a known system time, given in Epoch time with microsecond precision.

Lua provides os.time() which is in Epoch time, but only has 1 second precision, which is not good enough for my usage.

Lua also provides os.clock() which has millisecond precision, but it measures process runtime, not system time, so useless for this.

The Reaper API provides reaper.time_precise() which has microsecond precision and claims to be a "system timestamp", but it's not in Epoch time.

Here is example output of time_precise() compared to os.time():

time_precise: 709179.6048847; os.time(): 1685148400
time_precise: 709179.6335426; os.time(): 1685148400
time_precise: 709179.6653186; os.time(): 1685148400
time_precise: 709179.6973375; os.time(): 1685148400
time_precise: 709179.7284991; os.time(): 1685148400
time_precise: 709179.7615574; os.time(): 1685148400
time_precise: 709179.7903648; os.time(): 1685148400
time_precise: 709179.8204834; os.time(): 1685148400
time_precise: 709179.8554246; os.time(): 1685148400
time_precise: 709179.8863632; os.time(): 1685148400
time_precise: 709179.9166774; os.time(): 1685148400
time_precise: 709179.9473127; os.time(): 1685148400
time_precise: 709179.9811168; os.time(): 1685148401
time_precise: 709180.0095143; os.time(): 1685148401
time_precise: 709180.0403439; os.time(): 1685148401
time_precise: 709180.0703263; os.time(): 1685148401
time_precise: 709180.1036351; os.time(): 1685148401
time_precise: 709180.1335290; os.time(): 1685148401
time_precise: 709180.1683076; os.time(): 1685148401
time_precise: 709180.2003164; os.time(): 1685148401
time_precise: 709180.2352957; os.time(): 1685148401
time_precise: 709180.2643796; os.time(): 1685148401
time_precise: 709180.2960534; os.time(): 1685148401

os.time() is giving me the correct system time as Epoch time. WTF is that time_precise() number? Is there some way to correlate it with system time? Does that correlation work cross platform?

[cfillion]

On macOS time_precise gives a proper Unix timestamp. On Windows it seems to be seconds since boot?

Can combine the integer part of os.time with the fractional part of reaper.time_precise:

local ms_timestamp = os.time() + (reaper.time_precise() % 1)

...assuming Windows boot time doesn't start counting in the middle of a wall second.

[EricTbone]

Originally Posted by cfillion

...assuming Windows boot time doesn't start counting in the middle of a wall second.

I tested, and yes, the boot time can start at any part of a second.

I wrote a Win32 app to compare the high precision (<1us) system time (GetSystemTimePrecise) with the high precision "time since boot" time (QueryPerformanceCounter). They differ 220ms and change.

So I guess I'll write a console app that spits out the difference, run that with reaper.ExecProcess, then use that to adjust `reaper.time_precise()`.

But, man, what a kludge. Par for the course with this API, I guess. *shrug*

[jrk]

Do it in python?

[mschnell]

Beware that during playing or Rendering two kinds of clock need to be consider: the wall clock time and the project (audio/Midi) time (that can be considered starting starting with Bar 1 in the time line) Those don't have a fixed offset, but can widely differ between tracks and points in time.
Hence the "precise time" is only sensible usable in some dedicated situations.

-Michael

[EricTbone]

Originally Posted by mschnell

Hence the "precise time" is only sensible usable in some dedicated situations.

Project time is irrelevant for my use, I just want the system time with precision. That's it. There's no reason `time_precise` can't give a high precision system time on all platforms, except that the implementation is not thoughtful. It's one of those things where if Reaper was open source, we could fix it in 5 minutes. *sigh*