someone said:
I haven't used Google Earth for a few months but just now
when I went to use it there is only a big white globe, no
picture of earth, and when I search for an address, the
address and nearby pushpins show up, but there is no map,
just a blank screen. It worked fine last year.
I have tried lots of suggestions about un-enabling write
combining, clearing the Google cache, deleting the
myplaces.kml files and so on. Sometimes I get a message
"DirectX mode not supported", "Google Earth could not start
in DirectX mode", other times I can't even start the
program, it says "Google Earth needs to close, send an error
report etc." I tried running in OpenGL mode, but that
didn't work either.
I have checked my graphics card, a VIA Unichrome G3, and it
doesn't appear to have any problems, and my Directx version
is compatible with the program. I restored to a month ago
and still had the problem.
Does anybody have any ideas about what the problem could be?
I have googled for answers but none of them work.
someone
Start : Run : dxdiag
Try the DirectX tests. The dxdiag.exe is part of the DirectX
installation. It's there, to tell you DirectX works.
*******
This benchmark is a 40MB download, and it's free (shareware).
This version is ancient.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/3Dmark_2001_d99.html
It requires DirectX support as well, and as long as the benchmark
runs, you know both your video card driver and the Windows DirectX
installation are OK.
*******
Start : Run : devmgmt.msc
That brings up Device Manager. Look for the video card.
Check for yellow marks, error codes. Check the driver file
list and see if it looks reasonable for Unichrome.
*******
If the first test fails, you can reinstall DirectX 9c. The
hardest part of doing that, is finding a download. DirectX 9c
can be installed over top of DirectX 9c, so you can re-install
that puppy as much as you want. When you install DirectX, there
is also no uninstaller for it.
For example, even when it says...
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=9033
"System requirements Supported operating systems: ...
Windows XP Service Pack 3"
that can be a lie. You download it, and it turns out it doesn't
support WinXP. I don't know if there are any authoritative tables
telling you what to do about it.
There are many releases of 9.0c. It's released quarterly.
One file in the download, is different than the previous
quarter's download. If you installed them regularly, I
assume those single "dated" files accumulate (as you install
one version of 9.0c over top of another one). To what end,
I'm not sure. There was at least one game, where only a
particular DirectX 9.0c release, provided the support the
game needed. And the suspicion was, it was that single dated
file that had the necessary software subroutine. Don't ask me
to explain, in terms of computer science library management theories,
how all of this makes sense o.O :-( I'm at a loss for words...
*******
OK, another thought. Most video cards in the last ten years,
support dual head operation. That means, there can be at least
two connectors on the faceplate, and the card can drive a separate
monitor over each connector.
Now, inside the card, there are two logical "display channels".
When a 3D activity needs to be rendered, it can use a display
channel. I've had a case, where a driver was broken, and if
one thing "did something 3D", virtually all hardware acceleration
for other activities, was broken. Implying, for whatever reason,
there was no longer support for dual channels and dual heads.
A new driver download for the video card fixed that, and none
of my other efforts, made the slightest bit of difference.
If some newly added software on your machine, is using DirectX 3D,
and your VIA Unichrome was only supporting one logical display channel,
the video subsystem effectively has nothing for Google Earth to use.
I haven't a clue, what tool you'd use to debug this. As I said, I
couldn't figure it out, and thank goodness a driver update made
the problem go away. That doesn't usually do anything for a problem
like this (driver updates don't remove garbage from the Registry).
*******
Video memory. You need enough to run 3D. Your VIA graphics use
unified (system) memory. A BIOS setting, carves off a chunk, and
gives it to the graphics. 4MB would be enough to run a small frame
buffer, for 2D work. A more generous helping is needed, for 3D textures.
If you recently changed the CMOS battery on the computer, and all
custom BIOS settings were lost, the video shared memory setting
may have reverted to a too-low value. Try bumping it up. In some
cases, the BIOS looks at the amount of available system memory
(like 1024MB) and limits usage to a fraction (choices won't go
over 128MB say). Try a few values, save and exit, boot into
Windows, and see if anything has changed. Now, 3Dmark2001SE
won't run either, if there isn't enough memory for video.
There is also this application.
http://nuclearplayground.com/MemStatus/content.php
memstatus by Kevin Reems Version 2.65
31,232 bytes when unzipped
MD5SUM b832bfda3d76c475626be085c54d3557 *MemStatus.exe
That tool provides a simple readout of video memory, and
percentage currently in usage. So even without shutting down,
and playing in the BIOS, you can get some info.
If you need to scan a download like that, the file can be uploaded
to virustotal.com .
https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/...e693d1fbea89fd848d742f05602e72fbfe0/analysis/
Paul
