> I've long been using the standard track code (merc aged). > It's fairly complicated code, uses a lot of memory/CPU and is slow. > While this type of algorithm is above my head, I'm wondering if any others > have been written? > (Or tips for increasing the performance on the stock merc one?)
I haven't ever seen a really good snippet for this either... I've been meaning to play with some code along those lines for quite a while now, but I just haven't had the time. When you're talking about this type of algorithm (minimum spanning path on an unweighted, connected graph), the complexity is very bad (at best O(m*n)), and there's just no amazingly wonderful way to do it. The heuristic algorithms to do it the fastest aren't simple, and the simple ways to do it can be amazingly slow. There is at least a lot of information on available.. it's a popular topic since it basically has the same model as things like finding the best route for traffic on a network. --Palrich.
