I've just installed GalCiv2 on a Compaq laptop that has 1280x768 native resolution.
I've had to disable AntiAliasing in the game in order to get videos such as the intro video to run smoothly, and to stop stuttering in the audio for the tutorial videos. (With AntiAliasing set to the default of 4, and at least 3 and 2 as well, the intro video would run in a very stop-start fashion, skipping many frames, playing a few briefly, and then stalling for many more frames before resuming--the intro audio at least seemed to play back fine.)
With AntiAliasing off, the intro video now plays back relatively smoothly, and the tutorial audio in default (non-fullscreen) mode plays back perfectly. However, the tutorial video playback in default (non-fullscreen) mode goes in spurts--the video will run fine for a while, then stall for a long stretch, until eventually resuming for another spurt. Stalls are at consistent points as well--for instance, on the second tutorial video (starting a new game), the video always stalls as the "gigantic" galaxy is navigated to, and does not pick up again until the race selection screen is demonstrated.
Choosing to show the tutorial videos fullscreen eliminates that problem--except there is a penalty for running the tutorials fullscreen with the video resolution set to a widescreen display such as 1280x768.
The penalty is that the video is scaled to fit the width of the screen with no regard to the available height. Thus all the fullscreen tutorial videos show only the top 4/5 of the video (768 divided by the 960 pixel height I'm assuming to which the video is scaled).
Thus in order to fully benefit from the tutorial videos, I'll be forced to run the game temporarily in 1024x768.
The video scaler should be adjusted to fit the entire video to best fit the width and height of the display, and not just the width (e.g. on my 1280x768 widescreen display, the videos should be scaled to 1024x768 to preserve aspect ratio and still fit the screen). And it'd be somewhat of a moot point if the video could play back consistently within the tutorial playback UI, as that'd be prefered so that the tutorial script can be browsed while listening/watching.
Oh well, just a relatively minor nit--but one that I think others may come across, if they have widescreen LCD/plasma displays and try to view the tutorial videos fullscreen.
