Is there a more accurate way to create a Javascript timer than setTimeout?

Question

Something that has always bugged me is how unpredictable the setTimeout() method in Javascript is.

In my experience, the timer is horribly inaccurate in

Answer 1

I had a similar problem not long ago and came up with an approach which combines requestAnimationFrame with performance.now() which works very effectively.

Im now able to make timers accurate to approx 12 decimal places:

    window.performance = window.performance || {};
    performance.now = (function() {
        return performance.now       ||
            performance.mozNow    ||
            performance.msNow     ||
            performance.oNow      ||
            performance.webkitNow ||
                function() {
                    //Doh! Crap browser!
                    return new Date().getTime(); 
                };
        })();

http://jsfiddle.net/CGWGreen/9pg9L/