Google Earth, Matrox G200eW, and DirectX

Question

So i'm trying to use Google Earth on a server that has a Matrox G200eW video card. Does anyone know if this built-in card supports DirectX?

I've tried updating the drivers with no success.

It seems like I can't run Google Earth with DirectX (only OpenGL, which is slow)

When logging into the DirectX settings on dxdiag, the DirectDrawAcceleration and Direct3DAcceleration are "unavailable" with no buttons to enable them. Also, the video card driver is not listed in the menu (even after the updating of drivers)

Answer 1

OpenGL and DirectX fail differently when the hardware isn't up to the job.

OpenGL will revert to software rendering - which is slow.

DirectX will fail completely.

Now there are arguments for and against these different approaches and I don't want to get into an argument over which is the best approach. But what it means in your case is that Google Earth will fail completely when the driver is DirectX, but run really slowing when the driver is OpenGL.

Answer 2

i think DirectX6 was the current version when this GPU was 'modern'. :)

i doubt it will support anything higher than DirectX8.

Answer 3

It's not OpenGL being slow, it's your card.

The Matrox G200 range are not good at anything graphically intensive - which google earth is.

It's a cheap chipset, which will be why your server has it. Most servers run headless, and so have absolutely no need for a graphics chip at all, as most interaction will be remote and using protocols such as FTP or SSH. If it's a desktop tower you could buy a low-end graphics card for a fairly small amount of money, any reasonably recent card should run Google Earth fine.