Drawing peformance with Win32 - winapi

Question

I am getting a very poor peformance drawing with Win32. It takes too much time and needs improving. Please advise.
Here is what I do.
HDC dc = GetDC(wnd);
HDC memoryDc = CreateCompatibleDC(dc);
HBITMAP memoryMapBitmap = CreateCompatibleBitmap(dc, 400, 400);
HGDIOBJ originalBitmap = SelectObject(memoryDc, memoryMapBitmap);
Then, I draw in a for-loop as follows.
HBRUSH brush = (HBRUSH)GetStockObject(DC_BRUSH);
SetDCBrushColor(memoryDc, colorRef);
FillRect(memoryDc, &rect, brush);
And finally, I do a cleanup
SelectObject(memoryDc, originalBitmap);
DeleteDC(memoryDc);
ReleaseDC(wnd, dc);
Drawing takes a lot of time (several seconds). Is there a way to draw faster with Win32?
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

It looks like I have solved it. Below is the solution with some comments.
I have a dialog defined in RC-file. There is a control to display a bitmap image in the dialog.
CONTROL "", IDC_MEMORY_MAP, WC_STATIC, SS_BITMAP | SS_CENTERIMAGE | SS_SUNKEN, 9, 21, 271, 338, WS_EX_LEFT
In the run-time I need to create, draw and display a bitmap:
HWND map = GetDlgItem(dlg, IDC_MEMORY_MAP);
HBITMAP bitmap = createMemoryMapBitmap(map);
bitmap = (HBITMAP)SendMessage(map, STM_SETIMAGE, IMAGE_BITMAP, (LPARAM)bitmap);
DeleteObject(bitmap); // (!) this is a very important line, otherwise old bitmap leaks
Code that finds out the size of the bitmap to create:
HBITMAP createMemoryMapBitmap(HWND map) {
RECT rect = {0, 0, 0, 0};
GetClientRect(map, &rect);
SIZE size = {rect.right - rect.left, rect.bottom - rect.top};
HDC dc = GetDC(map);
HBITMAP bitmap = doCreateMemoryMapBitmap(dc, &size);
ReleaseDC(map, dc);
return bitmap;
}
Finally, we actually create the bitmap and draw on it:
HBITMAP doCreateMemoryMapBitmap(HDC dc, LPSIZE bitmapSize) {
// create 24bpp bitmap in memory in order to draw fast
BITMAPINFO info;
memset(&info, 0, sizeof(info));
info.bmiHeader.biSize = sizeof(BITMAPINFOHEADER);
info.bmiHeader.biWidth = bitmapSize->cx;
info.bmiHeader.biHeight = bitmapSize->cy;
info.bmiHeader.biPlanes = 1;
info.bmiHeader.biBitCount = 24;
info.bmiHeader.biCompression = BI_RGB;
void *pixels = NULL;
HBITMAP memoryBitmap = CreateDIBSection(dc, &info, DIB_RGB_COLORS, &pixels, NULL, 0);
HDC memoryDc = CreateCompatibleDC(dc); // (!) memoryDc is attached to current thread
HGDIOBJ originalDcBitmap = SelectObject(memoryDc, memoryBitmap);
// drawing code here
// perform windows gdi cleanup
SelectObject(memoryDc, originalDcBitmap); // restore original bitmap in memoryDC (optional step)
DeleteDC(memoryDc); // this releases memoryBitmap from memoryDC
return memoryBitmap;
}
The idea above is to create a 24bpp bitmap in the memory and draw on it. This way drawing is fast, as #IInspectable pointed out.
If display is in the indexed color mode, e.g. 16 or 256 colors, it seems Windows native control is smart enough to convert the color depth automatically displaying the bitmap.