Wow. Thanks a lot, i learned a good bit about threads from this and have managed to launch the thread in a manner that eradicates the error message and probably makes the thread a lot happier by not encumbering it with the OpenGL stuff unnecessarily: 
use threads;
use threads::shared;
use Carp;

use Config::Simple;

use Win32::OLE('in');
my $memory_use;
my %c;
BEGIN {
    share($memory_use);
    tie %c, 'Config::Simple', 'lifevis.cfg';
    sub update_memory_use {
        my @state_array;
        my $pid        = $PROCESS_ID;
        my $sleep_time = ( $c{sync_delay} * $c{full_update_offset} ) /
+ 1000;
        my $WMI_service_object = Win32::OLE->GetObject("winmgmts:\\\\.
+\\root\\CIMV2")
          or croak "WMI connection failed.\n";
    
        while (1) {
            @state_array = in $WMI_service_object->ExecQuery(
                'SELECT PrivatePageCount FROM Win32_Process'
                  . " WHERE ProcessId = $pid",
                'WQL',
                0x10 | 0x20
            );
            $memory_use = $state_array[0]->{PrivatePageCount};
            sleep $sleep_time;
        }
        return 1;
    }
    my $thr = threads->create( \&update_memory_use );
    $thr->detach();
}

use OpenGL qw/ :all /;

[download]

I wasn't planning to actually use OpenGL threaded anyhow, but actually only wanted to offload blocking operations that can work in the background.

One thing i stumbled across though: Do you think it would be possible to safely create a thread that binds the glut keyboard input callbacks and then creates a second opengl main loop that processes ONLY those? Alternatively, is there a way to do event systems directly within perl or while loops that can react quickly, but don't use up 100% CPU?

In a similar vein: If i would, say, declare $sleep_time above outside the thread, then modify it in the main program, would the changes be noticed by the thread or would it need to be shared first?

In reply to Re^4: Threads + OpenGL act weirdly? by Xenofur
in thread Threads + OpenGL act weirdly? by Xenofur

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