Turbo Mode

Please expand this article or section. You can help by adding more information if you are an editor. More information might be found in a section of the talk page. (April 2020)

Turbo Mode is a feature in Scratch that runs code quickly eliminating the short pause after running blocks that update the screen. It does not run as fast as possible to keep the person who's running the projects device from slowing down a lot.^{[citation needed]} To activate it, hold ⇧ Shift and click the green flag. Do this again to deactivate turbo mode. Another way to turn on turbo mode is to press See Inside and then press Edit, then "Turn on Turbo Mode". The use of turbo mode shifts resources from display (such as sprite motion on the stage) to computation (running code) either within the computer (offline mode) or the Scratch editor (online mode).

A picture of the icon that appears when turbo mode is enabled.

About

Turbo mode is a feature that runs Scratch projects at maximum speed, with little to no wait in between blocks running. It can be used to speed up Scratch projects that would run slow normally. It also can make certain Scratch projects that don't rely on wait for timing not work properly or run too fast, though this isn't the case with most projects.

Detection

Main article: Detecting Turbo Mode

Normally, switching the backdrop 10 times will take more than 0.1 seconds. When turbo mode is on, switching the backdrop 10 times will take less time. This can be used to detect if turbo mode is on.

when green flag clicked
reset timer
repeat (10)
    switch backdrop to (please wait v)
end
if <(timer) > [0.1]> then
    switch backdrop to (please use turbo mode v)
    stop [all v] // or run some other code
end
switch backdrop to (Turbo mode detected! v)

This can also be helpful in case users have created a project dependent on speed, because if turbo mode is activated, this could lead to unfair advantages compared to others who do not know about Turbo Mode.^{[citation needed]}

Uses

Turbo mode is mainly used for speeding up projects.

Projects that might use turbo mode include, but are not limited to:

• Drawing projects
• 3D engines
• Pen projects

Problems

Turbo Mode may cause choppy display by prioritizing computation over display.

Turbo Mode is not recommended for projects that require precise timing or have timed elements that rely on the waits on screen-updating blocks, as they would move faster than expected. On pen art projects, the final display may instantly show up instead of showing it being drawn slowly. One way to fix this is by using the "run without screen refresh" option on My Blocks. This will cause the custom block to run quickly without affecting other scripts.