What should you use instead of setTimeout for timing-sensitive code?
Use requestAnimationFrame for animations. Use performance.now() for measuring elapsed time. Use a self-correcting timer for precise intervals. Do not rely on setTimeout for exact timing.
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More FAQs in setTimeout Minimum Delay and Clamping in JavaScript
After 5 nested levels, browsers enforce a 4ms minimum. This is specified in the HTML spec to prevent abuse. The first 5 levels can use 0ms, but after that, the delay is clamped to 4ms.
Yes. To save battery, browsers throttle timers in background tabs. Chrome and Firefox enforce a minimum of about 1 second for setTimeout in background tabs. Very long-backgrounded tabs may be throttled even more.
For performance (prevent flooding the event loop with zero-delay timers), battery (background tabs do not need precise timers), and security (prevent timing attacks and excessive resource use).
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