OK, OK, let me try again...

Comparing a raytracer to scanline rendering is not really a like-for-like
comparism. They work in very different ways. All I was trying to get at is
  1) for a scene complex enough to make up part of, say, a computer game,
software raytracing takes a lot longer than hardware scanline rendering, and
  2) what can you do to a raytracer to make it go faster?

Personally, I have yet to create a texture complex enough for it to have any
measureable effect on render time. But throw in a shape that's difficult to
do intersection tests on - isosurface, text, or even just a torus - and the
render time goes up by miles. (Also turning on reflection or refraction.)
Lighting also slows things down more than would seem reasonable - I presume
due to the extra shaddow tests (which require - yes - more intersection
tests).

But anyway... I too have spent hours pondering the enigma of sorting lists.
(I don't have access to the books with all the answers, so I have to
reinvent the wheel.) It's a toughy, innit?

Thanks.
Andrew.

PS. I downloaded the POV-Ray sources once... I still have no friggin idea
what a Sturmian root solver is!!! Oh well...

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