  Monte Carlo radiative transfer (MCRT) simulations are a powerful tool for
determining the appearance of astrophysical objects, analyzing the prevalent
physical conditions within them, and inferring their properties on the basis of
real observations. Consequently, a broad variety of codes has been implemented
and optimized with the goal of solving this task efficiently. To that end, two
distinct frameworks have emerged, namely, the extinction and the scattering
framework, which form the basis of the path determination procedures of those
codes. These procedures affect the step length of simulated photon packages and
are used for determining flux estimates. Despite the fact that these
simulations play an important role at present and thus require significant
computational resources, little attention has been paid to the benefits and the
drawbacks of both frameworks so far. In this study, we investigate their
differences and assess their performance with regard to the quality of thereby
obtained flux estimates, with a particular focus on the required computational
demand. To that end, we use a testbed composed of an infinite plane-parallel
slab, illuminated from one side, and we determine transmitted intensity using
MCRT simulations for both frameworks. We find that there are vast differences
between the frameworks with regard to their convergence speed. The scattering
framework outperforms the extinction framework across all considered optical
depths and albedos when solving this task, particularly in the regime of high
optical depths. Its implementation can therefore greatly benefit all modern
MCRT codes as it has the potential to significantly reduce required computation
times. Thus, we highly recommend its consideration for various tasks that
require MCRT simulations.
