How to use unit of time less than milliseconds in a setInterval or setTimeout

Question

I would like to know (if possible) how to use a unit of time less than milliseconds in the functions setInterval or setTimeout.

I made a progressive stopwatch using the following code

function timer(){
    if(counter < qntLinhas){
        counter++;
        $("#quantidade").text(counter);
    }
    if(counter > qntLinhas){
        counter -= 1;
        $("#quantidade").text(counter);
    }
}

setInterval("timer()", 0);

The variable qntLinhas is referring to the result of an AJAX query that returns me an X value.

It works very well, However, when the value of qntLines is very high, it takes a little to get the final result and, even be boring to wait.

To circumvent this, I made two increments in a row in the counter variable, but in addition to being a gambiarra, the final result is not necessary.

I tried using the plugin countTo and the question of time was resolved, but another problem arose. It does not allow me to update the value, which I want to achieve in the count, at runtime (via AJAX).

Answer 1

The question has been answered here, and already received my +1. I will complement with this answer, which refers to the real problem, which was not initially posted in the body of the question.

For the counter not to take too long, I made a formula that calculates the increment step according to the distance remaining to reach the total value:

var qntLinhas = 938203;
var counter = 0;

function timer(){
    if(counter < qntLinhas){
        counter += Math.min( Math.ceil( ( qntLinhas - counter ) / 10 ), counter + 1);
        $("#quantidade").text(counter);
        setTimeout("timer()", 50);
    }
}
timer();

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.0.0/jquery.min.js"></script>

<div id="quantidade"></div>

In order for the processing not to happen randomly, we changed the setInterval for setTimeout, which will only be called as long as the counter needs to increment.

When completing Ajax, simply call timer() to update the counter.

To adjust the time, just touch the / 10 of the formula, and not setTimeOut. Formula splitting adjusts counter speed without having to overload page processing with lower timeout.

Test with very different values

This one I posted only as a test, to show how the formula adapts to very different values, with little difference between the finishes:

var qntLinhas1 = 1003;
var qntLinhas2 = 389041;
var qntLinhas3 = 93820317;
var counter1 = 0;
var counter2 = 0;
var counter3 = 0;

function timer(){
   if(counter1 < qntLinhas1) counter1 += Math.min( Math.ceil( ( qntLinhas1 - counter1 ) / 10 ), counter1 + 1);
   if(counter2 < qntLinhas2) counter2 += Math.min( Math.ceil( ( qntLinhas2 - counter2 ) / 10 ), counter2 + 1);
   if(counter3 < qntLinhas3) counter3 += Math.min( Math.ceil( ( qntLinhas3 - counter3 ) / 10 ), counter3 + 1);
   $("#quantidade1").text(counter1);
   $("#quantidade2").text(counter2);
   $("#quantidade3").text(counter3);
   if(counter1 < qntLinhas1 || counter2 < qntLinhas2 || counter3 < qntLinhas3) setTimeout("timer()", 50);
}
timer();

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.0.0/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div id="quantidade1"></div>
<div id="quantidade2"></div>
<div id="quantidade3"></div>

Answer 2

The body of your question expresses a different doubt than the present title. This answer refers to the title.

Is not possible, unless you rewrite the Handler for scheduling events in an engine like the Chromium, at the same time forcing the browser to behave outside the standards stipulated by Mozilla and HTML 5 specification (since all interfaces, both methods and value returns, work with unstructured milliseconds.)

Sources:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WindowTimers/setTimeout#Minimummaximum_delay_and_timeout_nesting

https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/webappapis.html#timers