How accurate are the timers used in RiddleMeThis?
The short version is “pretty accurate” — typical user response times (actual paper behind paywall) are 0.2s for keystrokes, 1.1s for mouse pointing, 0.4s to move hand between keyboard and mouse, and 1.3s to mentally prepare for an action. Barring some kind of computer “hiccup”, the expected timing uncertainties are very small (e.g. 1/60th of a second for screen refresh, 1ms for OS level timer). The long version goes like this: RiddleMeThis attempts to minimize the most obvious source of timing inaccuracy (file loading latency) by preloading assets before attempting to display a screen and starting a timer. The same technique also eliminates a major potential source of timing inaccuracies between web browsers, some of which will draw a partially loaded screen while others will not. It is unclear what the delay between a program telling the OS to draw an image on the screen and its appearing on a user’s monitor might be, it may vary anywhere between 0 and 3 screen refresh cycles (where t
