How to synchronize animation with time?

Question

I want to synchronize animation with time, but I can't determine the current time, because the return value of the System.currentTimeMillis() method is updated only every 10 milliseconds.
The following example demonstrates it:
import java.applet.Applet;
import java.awt.Graphics;
class TimeStep extends Applet
  long minimalStep=1000L;
  long lastTime=System.currentTimeMillis();
  public void paint(Graphics g)
    g.drawString("Minimal timestep: "+minimalStep,5,30);
    for (int i=25;i-->0;)
      while (true)
         long newTime=System.currentTimeMillis();
         long step=newTime-lastTime;
         if (step>0L)
             if (step<minimalStep)
                minimalStep=step;
             lastTime=newTime;
             break;
    repaint();
}It causes flickers by most framerates:
import java.applet.Applet;
import java.awt.Graphics;
class SynchronizedAnimation extends Applet
  static final int FRAME_RATE=90;     // 100 works, 90 flickers
  static final int STEP=5;
  static final int WIDTH=640;
  static final int HEIGHT=20;
  static final long FRAME_TIME=1000L/FRAME_RATE;
  int lastPosition,newPosition;
  long lastTime=System.currentTimeMillis();
  public void paint(Graphics g)
    long waitedTime=lastTime+FRAME_TIME;
    while (waitedTime-System.currentTimeMillis()>0L);
    lastTime=waitedTime;
    newPosition=(lastPosition+STEP)%WIDTH;
    g.drawLine(newPosition,0,newPosition,HEIGHT);
    if (lastPosition!=newPosition)
        g.setColor(getBackground());
        g.drawLine(lastPosition,0,lastPosition,HEIGHT);
        lastPosition=newPosition;
    repaint(0L);
  public void update(Graphics g)
    paint(g);

Answer 1

On windows 9x its even worse. The timer is only updated every 50/60 milliseconds.
Instead you could do something like keep the time when the animation starts, and then everytime you want to paint, check how much time has gone since then and calculate where the animation has gone to at this point.
Even if you can only update every 50 ms, it gives you 20 frames. I don't think its that bad.