Dear All,

I would appreciate it if everyone could follow the instructions below to give me extra details on your graphics cards. I know what the problem is (it used to be very common on the PC). If you all respond, then I can ensure that the problem is fixed on the next version.



There are 3 things you need to put in your reply:

Overlay Description
1. What resolution overlay is displayed correctly? Try 1024x1024 or smaller.
2. What resolution overlay is not displayed correctly and what does it look like? Try bigger than 1024x1024.
3. Note the resolutions you tried and the results.


System Profile - Graphics Card
1. Go to the 'Apple' menu.
2. Select "About This Mac".
3. Press "More Info" button.
4. If it's not expanded, then expand the "Hardware" section on the left.
5. Select "Graphics/Displays" (on 10.3.9 select "PCI/AGP Cards").
6. Copy the section on the right and post it in a reply (see example of text below).




"About Google Earth" dialog
1. Start Google Earth.
2. From the "Google Earth" menu, select "About Google Earth"
3. Copy the text to right of these rows (make sure to be very careful with copying the spelling and spaces correctly):
  • "Google Earth"
  • "Operating System"
  • "Video Driver"
  • "Max Texture Size"




An example post with description of overlay problem, "System Profile" and "About Google Earth":

--------------------------
800 x 700 overlays appear correctly. For an overlay of 1200 x 1350, the overlay is shown as a completely white image.
--------------------------
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700
Chipset Model: ATY,RV360M11
Type: Display
Bus: AGP
VRAM (Total): 128MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x4e50
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-xxxxx-169"
--------------------------
3.1.0617.0 (beta)
Mac OS X (10.4.4)
ATI Radeon 9200 OpenGL Engine (1.3 ATI-1.4.18)
2048x2048
--------------------------



Technical Background

The problem is usually caused by having an older graphic card. The card reports that it can support 2k by 2k textures but in reality it can't given how much of it's VRAM is already being used by Google Earth. The next release is currently planned to limit texture size to 1k by 1k for the following cards:

ATI Rage 128 Pro (ATI M3)
ATI Rage 128 OpenGL Engine (ATI M6)
ATI Radeon 7000
ATI Radeon 9600 XT (Radeon Mobility 9550)