The two methods can be combined. This allows the best two-step path to each state to be stored in RAM. Now reads will be able to trace back at a rate of two steps per cycle. This effectively makes the read bandwidth twice as high as the write bandwidth, at least in terms of valid path decisions per cycle. This concept can be extended easily to store more than two steps to each state. This would increase the read bandwidth, if that would be useful for a given application.