Use requestAnimationFrame NOT setInterval for animation loops

requestAnimationFrame is similar to setInterval, it but has these important improvements:

The animation code is synchronized with display refreshes for efficiency The clear + redraw code is scheduled, but not immediately executed. The browser will execute the clear + redraw code only when the display is ready to refresh. This synchronization with the refresh cycle increases your animation performance by giving your code the most available time in which to complete.
Every loop is always completed before another loop is allowed to start. This prevents “tearing”, where the user sees an incomplete version of the drawing. The eye particularly notices tearing and is distracted when tearing occurs. So preventing tearing makes your animation appear smoother and more consistent.
Animation automatically stops when the user switches to a different browser tab. This saves power on mobile devices because the device is not wasting power computing an animation that the user can’t currently see.

Device displays will refresh about 60 times per second so requestAnimationFrame can continuously redraw at about 60 “frames” per second. The eye sees motion at 20-30 frames per second so requestAnimationFrame can easily create the illusion of motion.

Notice that requestAnimationFrame is recalled at the end of each animateCircle. This is because each ’requestAnimatonFrameonly requests a single execution of the animation function.

Example: simple `requestAnimationFrame

<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
    body{ background-color:white; }
    #canvas{border:1px solid red; }
</style>
<script>
window.onload=(function(){

    // canvas related variables
    var canvas=document.getElementById("canvas");
    var ctx=canvas.getContext("2d");
    var cw=canvas.width;
    var ch=canvas.height;
           
    // start the animation
    requestAnimationFrame(animate);

    function animate(currentTime){

        // draw a full randomly circle
        var x=Math.random()*canvas.width;
        var y=Math.random()*canvas.height;
        var radius=10+Math.random()*15;
        ctx.beginPath();
        ctx.arc(x,y,radius,0,Math.PI*2);
        ctx.fillStyle='#'+Math.floor(Math.random()*16777215).toString(16);
        ctx.fill();

        // request another loop of animation
        requestAnimationFrame(animate);
    }

}); // end $(function(){});
</script>
</head>
<body>
    <canvas id="canvas" width=512 height=512></canvas>
</body>
</html>

To illustrate the advantages of requestAnimationFrame this stackoverflow question has a live demo

Found a mistake? Have a question or improvement idea? Let me know.

Table Of Contents