Thanks for your reply once again. I figured q3 must be using some kind of fake software solution for dynamic lights, since there is no limit at all but they don't look thaaat nice. Well, except for those seen in Call of Duty maybe, but there are worlds between the original q3 engine and CoD's

However -excuse me I'm still on it, but I really want to know - I'm still not satisfied as for the tesselation question. I don't want to start the obligatory "other engines are always faster than A6!" thread, but it seems as if q3 was definitely using some algorithm or whatever that is much more efficient, since, in q3-based games, level geometry renders incredibly fast. In A6, level geometry is about the slowest component I can imagine in the whole engine, for whatever reason. Q3 must be doing something quite a bit differently here. If you've still got any ideas left, please let me know