at one point when its going 3...4...5...6...7...8...

just 6 7 8 take 4 hours, i was tired of waiting after 8 so i canceled the compile...but what makes it so long and is there a way to make it shorter?

http://www.nibsworld.com/rtcw/tutorial_detail_and_hint_brushes_part1.shtml)

Also for big maps, as in BIG not just big, but BIG ... ahem :p ...

Get the worldspawn details up (select a regular brush and press N) and type a key of _blocksize and a value of 2048

wouldn't that lower the fps?

Not if done correctly....as long as you map tidily there should be no drop in FPS, in fact in many cases it could increase FPS because the vis data becomes optimised and doesn't have oddly shaped nodes which could make you "see" areas that shouldn't be drawn because you can't actually see them :p

It has three sets of 1...2...3...4... right?

what I do sometimes is let the first two go all the way then when it starts the third set of numbers I exit the bsp and another bsp box comes up and finishes alot faster.

Erm...then the vis data is never being saved, that 3rd box is the lighting phase. If you just watch the first 2 lines and don't let the 3rd line finish then the vis data won't be put in the BSP and you may as well just not even run that stage - and get lower FPS as a result!

You must let all 3 phases finish (BSP, VIS, LIGHT), if you close any one of them before it finishes you won't have that stage done, simple as.**


**The exception being if you're using -bounce n in the light stage but I won't go into that for fear of confusion :p