it’s tough getting the ball to roll smoothly with Dynamics (unless some other sphere type works better) but if you ignore roll and let it slide down the rails it’s not too hard. A test.
definitely, in the manual check out the Sampling (click on the image name in the matrial editor)the default is MIP sampling but perhaps SAT will do better and the settings of both can be tweeked. I think the other sampling modes are mostly best with stills (can’t check the manual right now) but the Help has some good info.
Are you using the Duplicate tool for this? If so activate Enable Rotation and choose the appropriate Align axis. If you are using some other tool (MoGraph or a plugin( we’d need to know which tool.
in Render Settings/Global Illumination the top pull down has Camera Animation and Object Animation modes as well as Standard and Stochastic. It sounds like you want Camera Animation mode but the Help has more info on what each mode is good for in the Modules/Advanced Render/Global Illumination/Parameters section.
yes, just as you describe. Make your spline and attach the camera to it with an Align to Spline tag then control the movement along the spline with the position parameter in the Align to Spline tag and tweak the speed with F-Curves