Screen doesn't fit, please help

[caitlinm]

I just got Civ4 for Xmas today (yay!) and I did the whole tutorial but there's a slight problem. The game expands further than is displayed on my screen. On the left side, the little announcements in white text and the pop-up boxes for terrain and units -- I can only see half of the box. I was wondering how I can configure things so it all fits and can be viewed properly.

Here are my specs, if you need them:
Windows XP, sp 2
Nvidia GeForce 2 MX 100/200
AMD Anthlon 64 3000+ 2.01 ghz
Nvidia nForce 3 motherboard/sound card
1GB RAM
125 GB+ disk space

My computer is basically all new, except for the video card which I took from my old computer. If you can help me get the graphics to move smoother too, that'd be awesome. The opening sequence skips a lot, and then the game announces that adjusts itself to lower quality for my video card. I can tell that it should run better duriong gameplay though.

Otherwise, I really need the game to fit properly on my screen. Thanks so much!

 

[Equisilus]

What resolution is your display on your desktop and what resolution are you using in the game? Those are both things you should look at to work out what the problem may be. Setting the game resolution at (or even below) the desktop resolution is usually best. If you have a flat panel display, setting the game at the same resolution as the flat panel's native resolution would be optimum. If you haven't tried the resolution change in the graphical settings for the game, do it and see if that makes any difference.

 

[caitlinm]

Thanks... I'm not used to this new version of Civilization so I didn't realize there were separate settings for graphics.

Hey, can I ask you, should I download the patch? I'm always relunctant to download and add extra stuff unless there is a problem... the game seems fine (though I haven't had the chance to play much yet) with the exception of sort of choppy graphics. So, will having the patch help me in anyway? Or should I play patchless?

 

[Velvet-Glove]

I say get the patch! It should improve your choppy graphics and overall game speed as memory usage problems have been more or less sorted out, fixes a number of game bugs and exploits, and adds a number of cool new things and functionality to the game. The 1.52 patch makes the game what it should have been to start with.