Which of the following scenarios would benefit most from using requestAnimationFrame instead of setTimeout?
Creating smooth animations and visual updates benefits most from requestAnimationFrame (rAF). Unlike setTimeout or setInterval, rAF is specifically designed for animations and visual updates by synchronizing with the browser's rendering cycle. This provides several advantages: 1) It runs at the optimal time for rendering, just before the browser performs a repaint, 2) It automatically pauses when the tab is inactive, saving resources, 3) It helps avoid visual artifacts by ensuring updates happen at the right time in the rendering pipeline, and 4) The browser can optimize multiple rAF callbacks together. For non-visual tasks like timers, polling, or data processing, setTimeout or other mechanisms may be more appropriate.