An apparatus and method are described for ray tracing. In particular, one embodiment of an apparatus for ray tracing comprises: feature adaptive subdivision logic to analyze faces on a subdivision surface and to responsively identify the faces as being of a first type or a second type, the feature adaptive subdivision logic to employ a first set of processing techniques to faces of the first type to generate a first patch type and to employ a second set of processing techniques to faces of the second type to generate a second patch type; and ray intersection determination logic to determine an intersection point between a ray and each of the patches of the first patch type and the second patch type.