Measuring time

Time is used in graphics to control animations – these are any moving objects or changing images. It’s also useful for determining the frame rate at which your application is running. There are numerous useful functions for this in the Pygame API, and you can read the details here: https://www.pygame.org/docs/ref/time.html. The frame rate is expressed in frames per second (FPS), and this is an important measurement as it specifies how fast the main loop takes to execute. It’s important to keep the loop running at the same rate for the entire application to ensure smooth performance and animations. If the loop changes speed, then the experience becomes jittery.

Currently, in our code, the frame rate will be as fast as your computer can run it. However, it might not be consistent, as your operating system processes other things in the background. To see just how fast your computer is running the main loop, try removing the following from the code...