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Multi Theft Auto: Wiki

Game processing order

Here is an overview of the order in which operations and events are executed during an average frame of playing MTA.

Frame start

  1. GTA Environment & Entity Updates - The game engine updates the surrounding environment, streaming, weather, and general world state through various update methods.

  2. World Processing & Matrix Updates - CWorld::Process is executed. This handles frame positions, matrices, and IK animations.

  3. onClientPreRender - Triggered immediately after CWorld::Process finishes.

    Best used for: 3D dxDraw operations or elements that need to strictly follow world objects.

  4. Camera Processing - CCamera::Process updates the player’s view and perspective.

  5. onClientRender - The primary rendering pipeline event.

    Best used for: Drawing 2D DX elements, user interfaces, and custom GUI. MTA handles its internal screen drawing here.

  6. Entity Pre-Render & Preparations - GTA calls PreRender methods for all entities to update their lighting and frame animations (e.g., vehicle components or ped bones).

  7. onClientPedsProcessed - Triggered after CWorld::ProcessPedsAfterPreRender.

    Best used for: Updating ped bone transformations, overriding moving vehicle component positions (e.g., firela ladder), or overwriting element lighting.

  8. World & FX Rendering - The engine renders the physical 3D world, geometry, and visual effects (FX).

  9. onClientHUDRender - Triggered right before Render2dStuff (the game’s HUD drawing routine).

    Best used for: Full-screen post-processing effects that should render underneath the radar and in-game HUD.

  10. GTA HUD & Final Frame Output - GTA draws the final HUD elements and wraps up the frame.

Frame end