video card advice?

At work I have a Power Mac G5, dual 2 GHz processor, with standard nVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 graphics card.

I'm seeing that this machine is not smooth in handling Google Earth, an application I expect to use quite a bit in the coming year. Navigation feels jerky and inaccurate by comparison with my new Power Book Pro.

So my question: is there a sub-$200 graphics card I could get for this G5 that would improve its performance with GE?

Thanks for any suggestions. I've not replaced graphics cards before and I'm not up on the issues.

I would worry more about the system RAM and not the vid card. How much RAM do you have? 1 to 2 GB should be more than enough for Google Earth to run smoothly. I have a 1.67 Ghz PowerBook G4 with 512 MB RAM and a 128 MB vid card and Google Earth runs just dandy for me.

Seems as if it should have plenty of memory:

Machine Name: Power Mac G5
Machine Model: PowerMac7,3
CPU Type: PowerPC G5 (3.0)
Number Of CPUs: 2
CPU Speed: 2 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 2.5 GB
Bus Speed: 1 GHz
Boot ROM Version: 5.1.8f7

But it sure isn't as fluid with GE.

Okay, first try the steps listed here:

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5284

If after that, and you still think it is running choppy, try uninstalling it and reinstalling Google Earth.

D3v1L80Y said:

Okay, first try the steps listed here:

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5284

If after that, and you still think it is running choppy, try uninstalling it and reinstalling Google Earth.

Click to expand...

Many thanks for the suggestions -- will try.