nodraw on every non-visible surface?

Would it be a good idea to create my whole map with teh nodraw texture and then once I have, say, each building completed... I go through and texture all visible faces?

Now I know your not supposed to ask multiple things but can someone also give me a link to a good tutorial on what walls and so on I should make func_detail, because the SDK reference manual information about it is kind of confusing.

If you texture each non-visible surface with NODRAW, all you'll get is
possibly a marginal decrease in compile time, that's all. Most
non-visible surfaces will usually get "thrown away" or culled by VBSP
when you compile anyway. Bottom line is: Unless you're bored or hitting
map memory limits, don't bother.

You should NOT make walls func_detail, you will want walls to block
visibility. Basically you should func_detail possibly railings,
columns, doorframes, etc., pretty much non-essential things. It's the
replacement for "func_wall" optimizations in Half-Life 1 mapping,
except better.

Cheers, i have completely read through the whole SDK mapping documentation and I understand roughly now how to optimize my map. Only one more thing... Is there anywhere a reference to what each bar means and how you can decrease it's drawing time when you press '+showbudget'?

Most of it should be self-explanatory. If you want to see what exactly is being drawn, type mat_wireframe 1
in, and it'll overlay a wireframe over everything. In general though,
you should be using props for the majority of your detail - they are
much cheaper than world geometry (brushes). If you find too much is
being drawn at once, change the "Fade In / Fade Out" properties of
props or consider changing some brush detail to func_lod.

VIS for HL2 is much faster than for HL1, but also much less accurate.
There will most likely be a lot of overdraw. Tinker around with area
portals for that, I guess.

Yes, I use wireframe and I think I can solve the problem of all the props in my pirson cells beign drawn even if you can't see them by enclosing the front in a areaportal_window, or sumin like that so that the contents of the room are actually only drawn once you get close.

But my dynamic_light was constantly maxed out before and I have no idea why, i only had 10 normal 'lights'.