Now running Slackware 12, but had the same experience in Slack 11.

Kernel 2.6.21.5-smp.
Graphics card, Asus/ATi PCE Express EAX550E (Radeon chip).
Using the generic Radeon driver that came with Slack 12.
AGP GART is enabled.
"glx" "dri" and Mode 0666 are loaded in the xorg.conf file.

All other video applicatons run well, but Google Earth is very slow, updates at a rate of 1 frame per second.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much.

Unless you have direct rendering enabled, google earth WILL be slow. Use the binary ATI driver 'fglrx'... You can get it on the amd/ati site.

Thank you for the response.
I've just completed installing the latest drivers from the amd/ati site and now Google Earth will not work at all. The splash screen comes and hangs.
MPlayer has also stopped working.
VLC plays video, but now no audio.
The fonts are now so tiny in VLC and MPLayer and I almost can't read them. I've increased the fonts size in the KDE control panel, but that doesn't seem to have any effect on VLC and Mplayer.
What could be the problem?
Thx.

Open up a terminal and start googleearth and mplayer from there. What's the output say?

What does 'glxinfo' say?

Thank you for the response.
VLC is now working properly. Just had to change and save the audio preferences, again.

Font size was corrected by editing the xorg.conf created by the ATi installation utility back to my original default resolution mode.

Google Earth will still not load. Whether ran from the KDE menu or from within terminal the splash screen loads and hangs.

MPlayer still will not work. Again, when loaded from the KDE menu or from a terminal window it gives the same error:
"error opening the selected video_out (-vo) device-"

Here is part of the result from running 'glxinfo'

ame of display: :0.0
display: :0 screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.2
server glx extensions:
GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_v
isual_rating,
GLX_EXT_import_context, GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap
, GLX_OML_swap_method,
GLX_SGI_make_current_read, GLX_SGIS_multisample, GL
X_SGIX_hyperpipe,
GLX_SGIX_swap_barrier, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_MESA_
copy_sub_buffer
client glx vendor string: ATI
client glx version string: 1.3
client glx extensions:
GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_EXT
_import_context,
GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_SGI_video_sync, GLX_A
RB_multisample,
GLX_ATI_pixel_format_float, GLX_ATI_render_texture
GLX version: 1.2
GLX extensions:
GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_EXT
_import_context,
GLX_ARB_multisample
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Radeon X300/X550/X1050 Series
OpenGL version string: 2.0.6747 (8.40.4)
OpenGL extensions:
GL_ARB_multitexture, GL_EXT_texture_env_add, GL_EXT
_compiled_vertex_array,

If you need more, let me know.
Many thanks for the help.

I used to use mplayer religiously but it's been a few years since I have. Development is too slow for me to bother with anymore. Maybe someone here can help you with mplayer. I suppose I would try deleting your ~/.mplayer directory and try launching it again. Maybe it's storing some preferences with relation to your old video configuration.

Did googleearth give you no output what-so-ever when starting it from the command prompt?

Thank you. I had already deleted the ~/.mplayer directory, but it didn't help.

No, Google Earth gives no output from the command prompt. The splash screen comes up and stays there on the screen until I kill it.

I found this in the dmesg log:
"fglrx: module license 'Proprietary. (C) 2002 - ATI Technologies, Starnberg, GERMANY' taints kernel.
[fglrx] Maximum main memory to use for locked dma buffers: 1894 MBytes.
[fglrx] USWC is disabled in module parameters
[fglrx] PAT is disabled!
[fglrx] module loaded - fglrx 8.40.4 [Jul 31 2007] on minor 0"

Wow.. I'm at a loss then... It's a catch 22 with regards to ATI. You have to use the proprietary ATI driver to run anything graphic intensive but at the same time the proprietary ATI driver sucks a big one.

I flat out refuse to buy ATI cards or even machines that come with one anymore. Indeed, I've just sold my brand new MacBook Pro due in part to the ATI card. In the not so distant future, everyone in the Linux community is going to have the same attitude, if they don't already.

Hopefully someone here can step up and help you resolve things. I hope your not interested in composting by the way... If you are, then just forget about it.

On a side note, I did have googleearth running on my MBP... Something is happening there. Your dmesg log looked ok.. Maybe you could try running strace on it, altho that can be downright cryptic at times.

I think fglrx doesn't work well with "xv" (even if you had a working driver). Try "mplayer -vo x11" or even "-vo aa".

Thank you for the suggestion!
"mplayer -vo x11" works. Works well, BUT, you can't scale the image, i.e., a video file will only run in its original size. I'll work with it and see what happens.
Now, if I could get Google Earth to run, it will be worthwhile. If I can't get Google Earth to run, it really isn't worth the hassle as I was perfectly happy with the way MPlayer ran with the generic Radeon driver.
We will see........
Thanks, again.

I had the same problem with MPlayer. A possible fix is right clicking the MPlayer screen, select preferences, then click the video tab. A list of drivers will show up, and selecting a different one should fix the problem.

I have always preferred Nvidia though, so that is what I am running.

I had tried that. Changing it from inside the program didn't work for whatever reasons. Starting the program with that option however, did do the job. However, I can't scale the video output, i.e., change the screen/display size.
Why are ATi video cards and Linux so incompatible? ATi has been making video chip sets probably longer than anyone else in the industry.
Still can't get Google Earth to run with the ATi driver set.
When I went back to the generic Radeon driver Google Earth wouldn't work, but it did before. I tried un-installing and re-installing, but now the splash screen doesn't even come up.
BTW, I tried a SlackBuild with the ATi made driver and that was a disaster. A long list of errors while compiling.
Guess I'm going to have to do the same thing with Google Earth as I do when I want to scan a photograph, boot to XP.

I just tried to run a slackbuild script, again, from the slackbuild web site and got this error,

mv: cannot stat `/tmp/SBo/package-googleearth/opt/GoogleEarth/EULA*': No such file or directory

Then I tried running the file with the "sh" command as per the instructions on the Google site and that returned a message, "no protocal specified."

Anyone know what is going on here?
Error in the script itself?
Any help greatly appreciated.
Thank you.