This is for those of you who hate waiting for hlvis to complete.if you have access to more than one computer (on a home or school network) you can speed up the vising process prodigiously with one of Zoner?s standard tools. Netvis.exe is easily overlooked but turns out to be an invaluable tool. I run netvis through the DOS command prompt, though you can probably set it up with one of the compile managers such as HLCC. In any case, I?ll be explaining the DOS procedure.

First, you need to have both netvis.exe, and CCXX32.dll in the same folder on the server system as the *.bsp to be vised. You also need these two files on the client computer. The *.bsp, however does not need to be copied to the client.



Now, start command prompt and cd to the pertinent directory.
Type: ?netvis ?server mapname? (without quotes) this will start the server as shown.



Dash across the room to the computer you are going to be using as the client, cd command prompt to the directory where you placed the two previously mentioned files and type: ?netvis ?connect servername? (without quotes) to initiate the connection. The server name can be either an IP address, a network ID (computer name), or a domain name.



That?s it! For some further information, refer to the netvis.html ?mini-manual? that comes with the tools. There isn?t much more info here besides what is in the above mentioned *.html file, but if nothing else this tut should call attention to netvis. I know I overlooked it for years.

My experience has been that vis takes by far the longest. a map that takes 8 hours to vis on my computer will typicaly only take ~30 min in rad. useing netvis cuts compile times dramaticaly. useing both my 1ghz machiene and a 2.2 ghz, I can cut that 8 hour vis run to ~40 min!
and yes you do have to run csg and bsp first, obveously.

it only takes like 45 seconds for me to run VIS on -low anyway...? ;P

so do you run hlbsp and hlcsg on the first computer first? and then don't you still have to run RAD- which takes like 90% of compile times anyway- on your normal computer? this sounds like a lot more trouble than it is worth.