Google Earth is a sophisticated application that tests many aspects of computer capability. This is an indirect way of saying that more of the transistors in your computer are earning their pay when you run Google Earth than at nearly any other time. (DOOM3 gives them a good workout too, but without Google Earth's sophisticated dynamic texture loading.) Getting maximum performance begins with reviewing your computer's existing health problems.

BEFORE THE TUNE-UP


From the tiny acorn grows the mighty oak

TUNE YOUR COMPUTER

1. The most effective way to make Google Earth perform faster on your computer is to make your computer faster. This may not be that difficult since replacing an older graphics board for a new, fast one makes a world of difference. For less than $200, both ATI and NVIDIA can put the wind in your hair as you fly the world in Google Earth.

2. Also important is physical disk health and speed. If your disk is sick, replace it ASAP. If your disk is more than 80% full, replace it with a disk of greater capacity. If you do not have a frequent regimen of disk defragmenting with a defragmenter that also restores file order on disk then a very low-cost upgrade is available to you. I use O&O Software's OODefrag and perform a weekly Full/Name defragmentation. The effect is significant. There are many vendors of similar software so check around. But do not be mislead by advertising about how quickly a product defragments or how completely it can defragment an almost filled disk. The first is silly ("I can perform that surgery faster than anyone!") and the second is moot (Windows will make things slow when your disk is 90%+ full no matter how well the disk may be organized.) Only buy products that can force a total order onto the disk in an effort to minimize seeks.

3. A generous amount of system memory (RAM) is a boon to all applications and Google Earth is no exception. The range from 512MB to 2048MB may sound like an oversupply, but is a low-cost way to optimize system performance by allowing Windows to keep all programs resident to avoid swapping, allowing programs extra room to maneuver (Google Earth, Photoshop, etc.), and giving the operating system space to keep recently accessed disk pages in memory for instant recall as is useful in Google Earth tour mode.

TUNE GOOGLE EARTH PERFORMANCE

Now we get to the part that is easiest to control, the Google Earth Client application. Start Google Earth, select "Edit" and then "Preferences", then review the various controls in the preference dialog. The three for you to think about are these:

1. Click the "Cache" tab, and then set the disk cache to a big size, I suggest 512MB. Set the memory cache to a big size too, but no larger than is reasonable for your machine's available RAM. Start with half of your system RAM size and let the application make it smaller for you if it notices that there is less free memory than you expected. The disk cache holds data from prior uses of Google Earth and the memory cache holds the data you were seeing moments ago. Having these big (and having enough RAM in your computer to do so) are the key to tuning Google Earth performance on a particular system.

2. Click the "View" tab, and then note the Detail Area setting. A smaller detail area makes for quicker viewing since less data is downloaded to your computer, but it also makes for a blurry fringe at the edges of your screen. Try this several ways and use the smallest size you find acceptable to get the highest performance.

3. Also in the "View" tab is the "Texture Colors" control. If you have an old, slow, tired notebook computer, motherboard with integrated graphics, or ancient graphics card (that really wants to be replaced ) then experiment with changing this to the 16-bit mode. It will make your display worse, but may make it faster as well. If you have a modern AGP-style system with graphics of the last few years the 32-bit setting is for you. Changing this won't make fast systems faster; it only makes slow systems less slow.

Note that it is good to make just one change at a time, apply that change, click OK to leave the control panel, and use the Google Earth client for a while to judge performance.

AFTER THE TUNE UP


Anything can be accelerated by making the proper adjustments.

Now that the vehicle is race-prepared, it is time for a few driving lessons. Let's get started!