Here's  the verion info from About GE:
Google Earth 4.3.7191.6508 (beta)
Build Date Apr 11 2008
Build Time 17:53:01
Renderer OpenGL
Operating System Linux (2.6.18.1)
Video Driver NVIDIA Corporation
Max Texture Size 4096x4096
Server kh.google.com
User
License Key

Here's /proc/cpuinfo:

processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 15
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU            5130  @ 2.00GHz
stepping        : 6
cpu MHz         : 1995.203
cache size      : 4096 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 2
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 10
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca
cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm
constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl vmx tm2 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips        : 3992.33

processor       : 1
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 15
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU            5130  @ 2.00GHz
stepping        : 6
cpu MHz         : 1995.203
cache size      : 4096 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 1
cpu cores       : 2
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 10
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca
cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm
constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl vmx tm2 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips        : 3990.00

And OS info:

cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client release 5.1 (Tikanga)

uname -a
Linux <hostname> 2.6.18-53.1.13.el5 #1 SMP Mon Feb 11 13:27:52 EST
2008 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers
cached
Mem:       2073688    2014296      59392          0     140040
870624
-/+ buffers/cache:    1003632    1070056
Swap:      2031608          0    2031608

and here's the problem: with v4.2 GE would start up in full screen
mode and the screen painting was very fast
v4.3 is excruciatingly slow, does not lauch in full screen mode, and
when I try to put it in full screen mode, runs
so slowly that it appears hung. Clicking on one of menu items can take
upwards of  30 minuts for the menu to show up.

So what can be causing the slowness?

If your system was performing well under 4.2 and badly under 4.3, you
may be affected by the new atmospherics in Earth 4.3.

If you pull down the View menu, do you see a check before
"Atmosphere"?  If so, does unchecking that (you may have to restart
Earth) bring performance back to the level of 4.2?

If it does, please post the specifics of your video card; especially
the output of  'glxinfo | grep renderer'

Thank you, I had the same problem (under Ubuntu 8.04) - 4.2 worked
fine, 4.3.7191.6508 beta is very slow.
Turning off the atmosphere helped.

On Apr 28, 11:47 pm, Robert  Lipe wrote:

Please post the specifics of your video system (glxinfo | grep
renderer) to help
others that may be affected.

On Apr 29, 2:19 am, it.luffy wrote:

Same here but on Gentoo. GE 4.2 worked fine, GE 4.3 is very slow.
Other 3D/OpenGL apps like quake3 are working fine.

On Apr 29, 6:11 pm, Robert  Lipe wrote:

direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) 945GM 20061017 x86/MMX/SSE2

Same behavior on Ubuntu 8.04 with GE 4.3.7204.0836 (beta). Disabling
View/Atmosphere makes it work faster.

$ glxinfo | grep render
direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) 945GM 20061017 x86/MMX/SSE2

$ uname -r
2.6.24-19-generic

On Apr 29, 7:11 pm, Robert  Lipe wrote: