gtkradiant vs blender for large outdoor maps

[Anton]

I am thinking of writing a game using CS, and it will be mostly large outdoor areas with a large view distance (think very low altititude flight sim).

First of all, I have only seen one or two screenshots of CS being used for this.. does it work well? Can you do bump-mapping or similar to give the impression of rough terrain?

Secondly, I am familiar with gtkradiant, though have not used it for a long time. How good is it for generating maps for CS, what big things do/don't work? Is it worth learning blender to create such maps?
Should the general terrain be a mesh/grid and what sort of detail should i be looking at in terms of polygon size to make smooth looking hills without needing a brand new pc.

[deckerego]

You can still use Radiant, but I'd recommend Blender. I'm not sure how much the Radiant->CrystalSpace converter is even maintained any more.

[anton]

cheers

[Manuel]

Which brushes are recommended for reducing game engine strain in large maps. I have some strange vis problems in mine. Characters tend to blink in and out.