Improving Performance in Google Earth

Is Google Earth too slow on your computer? There are a number of quick steps you can take to improve performance. These include:

• Reduce the number of items you have in your My Places folder - As stated in the user guide. "Each time you start Google Earth, all the places data is processed during startup, even if it is not turned on in the 3D viewer. Holding a large amount of data in the My Places folder can impact the performance of Google Earth, depending upon your computer. By saving folders to your hard drive, you can improve Google Earth performance by then deleting the data from your My Places folder once they are saved to disk. You can always open the data you save at any time.".
  
• Make sure you have the latest video drivers for your computer- This can make a big difference with Google Earth and other graphic intensive applications.
• Change 3D viewer options - These include display, detail, terrain quality and graphics mode. Learn more in the user guide.
• Be sure that your computer meets the system requirements - Learn more about these requirements.

The Google Earth Help Center has a lot of information about tweaking performance.