A system and method for optimizing the performance of a graphics intensive software program for graphics acceleration hardware. For each bid not part of the current allocation, a neighboring allocation is determined by combining the bid with the current allocation and deleting from such combination any bid of the current allocation having an item that overlaps an item of the bid combined with the current allocation. Each measurement is normalized on the basis of multiple measurements of different wavelengths, distributed over a substantial area, such as along the relevant scan line, preferably using a value representing the dispersion of the measurements.