The Acme screw is used both for accurate positioning and lifting heavy loads. It has a very truncated thread profile, with each flank of the thread inclined at 29 Degrees from the 'vertical' (perpendicular to screw axis). It is designed such that the width of the thread taken at half the thread height is about equal to the space between threads at that height. It is one of the strongest thread profiles, and gives a good, wide, load-bearing surface, so as to minimize wear. It is necessary for there to be some backlash, as a slight difference between the screw and the nut's thread pitch would otherwise cause binding.
The Ballscrew eliminates most of the friction present with all other screw types by cutting concave 'valleys' into both the screw and nut, such that bearing balls can roll between the screw and nut. Channels are provided so that the balls can 'recirculate' to the beginning when they reach the end of the nut. A simple method of providing anti-backlash operation is to mount two nuts on the same screw, with some arrangement such that the nuts cannot rotate with respect to each other. Springs of some sort are placed between the two nuts such that a 'preloading' force is always present between the two nuts, and this force is to be greater than any linear thrust to be seen in normal operation. This can only be done with ballscrews because of their slow friction. Other screws would wear very quickly if set up this way. A more intricate method of providing the preload is to grind the two ball tracks in one nut with a very slight offset with respect to each other. Also, the individual nut tracks are ground a little oversize, with resect to the screw and the size balls to be used. When all these operations are done just right, there will be a predetermined preload force when the screw, balls and nut are assembled together. This is generally the method used in most commercial anti-backlash ballscrews.
There are generally 3 grades of ballscrews. The utility or power-transmission grade rolled thread is fairly rough, and best used for screw jacks, vises and other non-precision motion applications. It is generally not accurate enough to even take an anti-backlash nut. The precision rolled thread grade can achieve accuracy nearly as good as a ground screw, and can be used with an anti-backlash nut. Accuracies of anywhere between .001"/inch to .003"/Foot are fairly common. The highest cost is for the ground thread ball screw, which generally would have an accuracy of .003"/Foot or better, with .001"/Foot being a common spec. Rolled threads are always spec'ed with a cumulative error, unless tested and certified individually. Ground threads can be had with cumulative (cheaper) or non-cumulative (can be a LOT more expensive) error specs.
Note that any type of screw can be cut with 'multistart', meaning that there is more than one thread track interleaved along the length of the screw.
Some other screw thread types are Whitworth, which resembles a sine wave, and square (similar to Acme, but weaker due to the sharper angle where the thread meets the root diameter). Also, a butress thread profile is asymmetric, giving greater strength in the direction needed. These are used on some screw jacks and big C-clamps.