White Flicker after CombineRgn function

Question

It seems the flickering is generated by the CombineRgn function, but I really have no idea why this happens, since i've never used regions that much I'm possibly missing some knowledge on the matter.

Some events in the program triggers the addition of little rectangles to the main region, here's the code that handles that:

        HRGN ActualRegion = CreateRectRgn(0, 0, 0, 0);
        GetWindowRgn(hwnd, ActualRegion);
        HRGN AddedRect = CreateRectRgn(//long code that creates a rectangle)
        CombineRgn(ActualRegion, ActualRegion, AddedRect, RGN_OR);

        SetWindowRgn(hwnd, ActualRegion, FALSE);
        InvalidateRect(hwnd, NULL, FALSE);

White Flickering appears only after the invalidation if new regions where combined to the main one.

Here's how I'm implementing double buffering in WM_PAINT:

PLEASE NOTE that on creation i'm enabling the DWM blur behind function with an invalid region (different from the Main one) which means that everything painted with BLACK_BRUSH will result in a 100% "invisible" portion of the program

        RECT r; GetClientRect(hwnd, &r);

        PAINTSTRUCT ps; HDC hdc = BeginPaint(hwnd, &ps);
        HDC MemDc = CreateCompatibleDC(hdc);
        HBITMAP hBmp = CreateCompatibleBitmap(hdc, r.right, r.bottom);
        HBITMAP hOld = (HBITMAP)SelectObject(MemDc, hBmp);

        //Making sure this dc is filled with "invisible" pixels to display
        SelectObject(MemDc, GetStockObject(BLACK_BRUSH));
        Rectangle(MemDc, //arbitrary values that matches the entire screen);

        BitBlt(hdc, 0, 0, GetSystemMetrics(SM_CXSCREEN), GetSystemMetrics(SM_CYSCREEN), MemDc, 0, 0,        SRCCOPY);

        //clean-up
        SelectObject(MemDc, hOld);
        DeleteObject(hBmp);
        DeleteDC(MemDc);
        EndPaint(hwnd, &ps);

WM_ERASEBKGND obviously returns TRUE without further handling, the WNDCLASSEX instance of the window has a default BLACK_BRUSH as the hbrBackground field.

I also tried to intercept and return TRUE from WM_NCPAINT message.

I'm doing everything necessary to avoid intermediate drawcalls, everything handled inside the WM_PAINT uses a backbuffer, also i'd like to mention i'm not working with images/bitmaps. Everything is drawn with gdi/gdi+, and in no place i'm actually issuing a "white" redraw that may possibly cause said flicker. I'm a bit lost here

Is it something that i'm possibly missing ? I can't really understand what may be causing white flickering in this scenario

Answer 1

The problem is not the CombineRgn function but the SetWindowRgn function which you call before the system draws the window for the first time. If you call SetWindowRgn after the first draw, no flicker. Unfortunatelly I don't know why. So, a way to counter that is to set the window region after the first draw (take the code that sets window region from WM_CREATE and leave only the DwmEnableBlurBehindWindow):

static int stc = 0;

//in WM_PAINT after the EndPaint(hwnd, &ps); add
HRESULT lr = DefWindowProc(hwnd, message, wParam, lParam);

if( stc == 0 ){
    OnlyOnce();
    stc++;
}

return lr;

and the OnlyOnce:

void OnlyOnce(void){
    int X_Screen = GetSystemMetrics(SM_CXSCREEN);
    int Y_Screen = GetSystemMetrics(SM_CYSCREEN);

    HRGN ActualRegion = CreateRectRgn(X_Screen - 100, Y_Screen - 100, X_Screen - 100 + 40, Y_Screen - 100 + 40);
    SetWindowRgn(hWnd, ActualRegion, true);

    return;
}