is there any way to speed up the map compiler?
i mean i have a good 2bg of memory and it only uses about 125mb
and i left it on all night to compile a smallish map and it was still
working when i checked it in the morning.

its about procressor not memory.

well i dont think its using too much processor either!
is there any limitations on it that i can change or something?

There was a bug in the Compiler just have a look at the Beta page^^.

LC The lite-C compiler kernel was modified. Previously, scripts containing lots of predefined engine structs and numeric constants compiled quite slow. They now compile much faster.

umm.. dont mean to sound stupid, but how do you actually download the betas?

currently only PRO owners can download betas, but i think new beta will go release in 2 weeks.

I think Poison mixed something up. The4d was talking about the map compiler. An improved Lite-C compiler will not help much here because the latter compiles the game-logic (scripts) but not the level geometry.

I once compiled a level for 3 days and the later version of the compiler is even slower now. Big levels are hard to make and you need serious optimizations and only low-poly blocky geometry. Even rotating some blocks slows the compiling process down.

What especially takes most time on your building process? Lighting calculation or Visibility or something else?

The Visibility calculations take up most of the processor-time.

Aligning / snapping block-edges to even coordinates, and avoiding intersections of Blocks, rotated blocks and small gabs are the best way to increase the
BSP visibility calculation speed.

i got rid of some spheres that were used as pebbles on the ground and it seems to have sped up from over 12 hours to about 10 minutes!

never.
using.
spheres.
again.

all "unusul" and twisted objects, especially spheres, who create lots of
intersections and hollow gabs, increase the
visibility calculations

Did you compile it with visibility calculations on?