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#1 2009-02-08 15:05:43

Xinix
Member
Registered: 2008-03-14
Posts: 83

Google Earth glitches

After a long time not using it I installed Google Earth 5. What is strange is that the maps render OK, speed is acceptable, but the fonts in some menu entries get garbled up, as well as the text that appears in the map (like e.g. city names, map data etc). Characters are missing or distorted. The same happens with text that appears when hovering over an icon that indicates pictures or wiki entries.

It looks like an overlay proble, but I am not sure how to fix it.

I run it under KDE4 on an HP laptop with Intel 945 GM chip. Have already tried disabling Kwin effects, changing fonts in Google Earth and changed some settings in xorg.cong (AccelMethod EXA) but no difference.

Starting in a terminal gives no errors either. Any ideas?

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#2 2009-02-09 02:08:09

jarryson
Member
Registered: 2007-02-18
Posts: 298

Re: Google Earth glitches

remove the libQT* files in google earth installed dir and pacman -S qt

and remove libcrypto.so.0.9.8 if there will be problem with ssl or something

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#3 2009-02-09 07:57:23

Xinix
Member
Registered: 2008-03-14
Posts: 83

Re: Google Earth glitches

Thanks, that did seem to resolve the garbled fonts in the menu!

However, the overlay text on the map still has a lot of missing characters. One more stroke of genius and I'm saved! wink

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#4 2009-02-14 11:29:52

RobF
Member
Registered: 2006-10-10
Posts: 157

Re: Google Earth glitches

I'm having the exact same problem (GE5.0, KDE4.3, Dell Inspiron 6400 with Intel 945GM).  I believe it started when the X system video driver "i810" was replaced with the new "intel" driver, during the upgrade of kernel 2.6.27-2 -> 2.6.27.10 (I'm now using 2.6.28).

There appear to be two categories of fonts in the text overlays: a slightly larger font used for placemarks, labels of picture and wiki entry icons and for the text at the bottom of the screen, and a smaller font that's used for street names.  Often now, one of these two font categories is intact, i.e. all the letters are there, but many of them are missing in the other, and then again, after I clear the cache or change a font or do some other things, the situation is reversed.  As for numbers, all of them but the numbers 8 and 9 are always missing, and I can't read the calibration on the distance ruler nor the elevation or the geographical location.  The most usable 3D font I've found is Helvetica Bold 12; others are even worse, in terms of legibility.  But with all of them, there is always something missing.

This is not a problem with GE but rather with font rendering in Linux that is probably specific to the new "intel" video driver.  I.e. when I replace the "intel" video driver with the "vesa" driver (in /etc/X11/xorg.conf), i.e. run GE in OpenGL with software emulation, then all the text in the overlays is there, but GE runs very slowly.  I can't use the older "i810" driver either because that one was removed during the upgrade to the "intel" driver with kernel 2.6.27.10.  It's not compatible anymore with the newer kernel: the "i810" driver would crash the system and X windows would never start up.

This problem is extremely annoying, and it seems to be fairly widespread with GE for Linux but nobody seems to have come up with a solution.

Some pertinent (?) entries from my xorg.conf:

Identifier     "Xorg Configured"
Option "AIGLX" "true"

Section "Module"
        Load  "ddc"  # ddc probing of monitor
    Load  "dbe"
    Load  "dri"
    Load  "extmod"
    Load  "glx"
        Load  "bitmap" # bitmap-fonts
    Load  "type1"
    Load  "freetype"
    Load  "record"
    Load  "synaptics"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Card0"
    Driver        "intel"
    VendorName  "All"
    BoardName   "All"
    Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "true"
    Option "DRI" "true"
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
     Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

Any help would be appreciated.

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#5 2009-02-14 11:56:09

Xinix
Member
Registered: 2008-03-14
Posts: 83

Re: Google Earth glitches

FWIW, I now run the MEPIS KDE 4.2 respin and all is smooth. glxgears reports 800 fps whereas in arch it reports 430. Intel video and kernel 2.6.28 are quite broken.

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#6 2009-02-14 14:21:01

RobF
Member
Registered: 2006-10-10
Posts: 157

Re: Google Earth glitches

Well, I'd like to stay with Arch, love it.  Glxgears has never produced spectacular results on my Arch system; it now clocks in at around 500 FPS, and that's how it's typically been (Intel i686 dual core CPU, 1.7 GHz, 1 GB RAM).

Isn't there a way to tweak the Xorg config so that the new "intel" driver behaves better in it?  In some Linux forum someone suggested to remove mesa (I've got mesa 7.2-1 installed).  Would that help?

glxinfo produces the following (selected items):

direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.2
GLX version: 1.2
OpenGL vendor string: Tungsten Graphics,
Inc
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) 965GM 20061102 x86/MMX/
SSE2
OpenGL version string: 1.4 Mesa 7.2

Last edited by RobF (2009-02-14 15:15:17)

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#7 2009-02-16 23:58:08

Götz
Member
Registered: 2009-02-16
Posts: 30

Re: Google Earth glitches

RobF, with the actual Intel driver 2.4.3 I have also some problems with fonts in OpenGL programs, maybe it is a problem in the driver or Mesa...

The latest Intel driver 2.6.1 has many architectural changes to support GEM, DRI2 (using UXA), KMS, etc., but I get more problems using EXA or UXA than with Intel 2.4.3.

AFAIK there is not so much to change in xorg.conf. With my IGP 865G I have changed to use the old XAA instead of EXA because I got some screen corruptions and slownes. I think that with you grafics card you won't get any benefict using XAA, but you can try to put this in you xorg.conf in  Section "Device"

Option          "AccelMethod"            "XAA"

Also, as the new Xserver 1.5 detects most of the hardware on start, you can clean a bit you xorg.conf, maybe you have something that makes problems. My xorg.conf is this:

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "Configured Video Device"
        Option          "AccelMethod"            "XAA"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier      "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier      "Default Screen"
        Monitor         "Configured Monitor"
        Device          "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

The only thing we can do is test the latest Intel, Mesa, DRI, Xorg bits and fill bug reports if we find something. Also with Intel 2.6 you can try UXA which enables DRI2, but most likely you will have more problems.

Maybe when Intel 2.7 and Mesa 7.4 arrives, the performance will be better with less problems.


What I hear, I forget. What I say, I remember. What I do, I understand.  –Tao Te Ching/Laozi

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#8 2009-02-17 07:35:50

olive
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2008-06-22
Posts: 1,490

Re: Google Earth glitches

I have also the same problem (missing characters in Google earth). Moreover the "view atmosphere" should be disabled (otherwise it is so slow that it is unusable). According to a web search the missing character problem seems proper to Intel graphic card. According to the following post (see the message from 2009-02-05):

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/intre … bug/295934

the problem was present in Ubuntu but would have been solved in the latest version with "Intel 2.6.1" (pacman -Qi xf86-video-intel gives 2.4.3-1). I do not have an Ubuntu installation (nor do I have the courage to install one to test this); but this may suggest that this problem should be solved when arch will upgrade the xf86-video-intel package. Here is the lspci output relative to my graphic card:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)

Last edited by olive (2009-02-17 07:40:15)

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#9 2009-02-17 07:49:04

bangkok_manouel
Member
From: indicates a starting point
Registered: 2005-02-07
Posts: 1,556

Re: Google Earth glitches

olive wrote:

I have also the same problem (missing characters in Google earth). According to a web search the missing character problem seems proper to Intel graphic card. According to the following post (see the message from 2009-02-05):

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/intre … bug/295934

the problem was present in Ubuntu but would have been solved in the latest version with "Intel 2.6.1" (pacman -Qi xf86-video-intel gives 2.4.3-1).

I had this problem, I do not have it anymore and I'm now using xf86-video-intel 2.6.1
However, I didn't pay attention enough to confirm that 2.6.1 solved this issue, I'm just reporting facts...

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#10 2009-02-17 08:01:57

olive
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2008-06-22
Posts: 1,490

Re: Google Earth glitches

bangkok_manouel wrote:

I had this problem, I do not have it anymore and I'm now using xf86-video-intel 2.6.1
However, I didn't pay attention enough to confirm that 2.6.1 solved this issue, I'm just reporting facts...

Are you the same person who have posted the Ubuntu message? Are you on Arch? Together with the message on the Ubuntu forum; that strongly suggest that the problem should be solved with intel 2.6.1. The intel 2.6.1 package is not in the repository; did you compile it yourself?

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#11 2009-02-17 08:33:43

bangkok_manouel
Member
From: indicates a starting point
Registered: 2005-02-07
Posts: 1,556

Re: Google Earth glitches

Are you the same person who have posted the Ubuntu message?

No

Are you on Arch?

Yes

The intel 2.6.1 package is not in the repository; did you compile it yourself?

Yes

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#12 2009-02-17 09:23:22

agapito
Member
From: Who cares.
Registered: 2008-11-13
Posts: 641

Re: Google Earth glitches

olive wrote:

Moreover the "view atmosphere" should be disabled (otherwise it is so slow that it is unusable).

I couldn't use Google Earth for 8 months because this bug!

olive wrote:

[ The intel 2.6.1 package is not in the repository; did you compile it yourself?

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=22968


Excuse my poor English.

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#13 2009-02-17 17:39:55

RobF
Member
Registered: 2006-10-10
Posts: 157

Re: Google Earth glitches

I compiled and installed the most recent version of the "intel" driver xf86-video-intel-newest 2.6.1-2 from the PKGBUILD

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=22968

That didn't cure the problem of the missing letters and numbers in GoogleEarth.  Moreover, glxgears dropped from 500 to 200 fps.  Setting Option "AccelMethod" in xorg.conf to either XAA, UXA or EXA, also didn't cure it (in fact with XAA, the system hung when it tried to restart X), and glxgears stayed at the low value of 200 fps.

I've gone back to using xf86-video-intel 2.4.3-1.

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#14 2009-02-17 20:34:00

Götz
Member
Registered: 2009-02-16
Posts: 30

Re: Google Earth glitches

RobF did you use Xserver 1.6 RC and Mesa 7.3?

Also Glxgears is not a benchmark to show the power of your graphics card, but in many cases it reflects the average performance. I have read that in the near future the Glxgears test will be sync with the refresh rate, so, in many cases it will be at 60 for LCDs.


What I hear, I forget. What I say, I remember. What I do, I understand.  –Tao Te Ching/Laozi

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#15 2009-02-17 22:58:24

RobF
Member
Registered: 2006-10-10
Posts: 157

Re: Google Earth glitches

I've got xorg-server 1.5.3-4 and mesa 7.2-1 installed.  Would you recommend then that I upgrade these to xorg-server 1.6 RC and mesa 7.3 and try again?

Wrt low values of glxgears, I also noticed that GE was slower and jerky with the intel-newest driver.

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#16 2009-02-18 18:19:42

Götz
Member
Registered: 2009-02-16
Posts: 30

Re: Google Earth glitches

In Xserver 1.6 RC and Mesa 7.3/7.4 are more bugs fixes and support for DRI2 using UXA.

Maybe you will get better performance or maybe not, you have to try, I got better more or less the same performance but some corruptions on the screen.


What I hear, I forget. What I say, I remember. What I do, I understand.  –Tao Te Ching/Laozi

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#17 2009-02-24 15:01:12

RobF
Member
Registered: 2006-10-10
Posts: 157

Re: Google Earth glitches

Xinix wrote:

FWIW, I now run the MEPIS KDE 4.2 respin and all is smooth. glxgears reports 800 fps whereas in arch it reports 430. Intel video and kernel 2.6.28 are quite broken.

I just installed sidux 2009.01 on another partition of the same laptop, and then did a full system-upgrade.  I.e. this sidux install is as current as Debian sid gets.  I then installed Google Earth 5 according to their method and wound up with a GE that runs very smoothly and has all letters and numbers in the overlays properly rendered.  glxgears gives 1160 in sidux , compared to 500 in Arch.

Here are the version numbers of some of the packages installed in these two distros:

                             Arch            sidux
kernel                  2.6.28          2.6.28-5
xorg-xserver        1.5.3-4         1.4.2-11
"intel" driver         2.4.3-1         2.3.2-2
mesa                    7.2-1            7.0.4

Heaven knows where the poor performance of GE5 in Arch comes from.  It's obvious that the new Intel driver "intel" does work well with kernel 2.6.28 - after all, it does so in sidux and presumably also in Mepis.

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#18 2009-03-09 15:58:52

cnshzj007
Member
From: Shanghai, China
Registered: 2008-03-18
Posts: 44
Website

Re: Google Earth glitches

I just have read all above. I think I do have got none obvious key to cure the missing letters with GE. I have wait and hope more eyes!

Last edited by cnshzj007 (2009-03-09 15:59:21)

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