Yes! Wined3d.dll in combination with -no3d really fixed it for me! Just played for more than an hour without any lag.

Thanks a lot! That's much easier than setting up a VM.

Please, can you send me the link too ? Thank !

The game seem to be fine now ! Thank you !

Can I get that link? It's lagging for me. Tried windowed and no3d to no avail. Made it a little better but just gets progressively worse.

Just google it! There's a page on nongnu dot org where you can dowload compiled .dlls. You'll need 7Zip to extract the files directly from the installer.

Considering the trouble many people here had, I really think GOG should include this fix in their download.

Where did you put the dll? I put it in the game folder, started the game and it became more laggy.

Simply using the -no3d and -doublebuffer flags as suggested in the official GOG support area got it working fine on my 32 bit W8 machine. I am not running the widescreen mod. Worked fine with zero changes on my W7 x64 machine.

Yep, just the game (all 3 dlls mentioned) folder. I'm running the widescreen patch at 1920x1080, have the unofficial patch, HQ town maps and HQ music installed. Compatability set to XP SP3, Admin Rights enabled.

EDIT - Tried the game with original dll using the tips from the post above.

Better than it was originally but still some lag. Added the Wine dlls and it was running perfectly again.

Oh. I downloaded only one dll, not three. Now, when I downloaded all three - the game is working perfect.

Hey could someone send me the link for the 3 dll's. Having trouble finding the correct ones through just a google search. Thanks

Turns out after further playing I do still have some lag, I'm going to try installing all the mods spagbol has and see where that gets me.

If you want the .dll's you just need to download the .iso and extract them using something like 7zip, search for wined3d in google and it should be the first link. I'm not sure if it's cool to post a direct link but it's very easy to find via google with that search. Look for a WineD3D Builds for Win32 page.

Yep, that's how I found the .dlls.

I'm seriously thinking about going back to W7 now. Having major problems getting modded Oblivion stable, and that's a game I can mod in my sleep. Not even installed Fallout 3 yet (but had some graphics issues with Fallout and Fallout 2 from here with the widescreen patches on W8) so that'll be fun...

Hey so could someone send me those dll links please? I'd really appreciate it!!!

Hey, the WineD3D solution in this thread helped me, but the posts here were really confusing! I'm posting this to try to clarify for anybody having the same problem. Part of the problem is that GOG doesn't seem to want anybody posting links on the forum, so I'll try to work around that maybe somehow?

* Download wined3d.exe from: nongnu (dot) org (slash) wined3d

* The DLLs are kind of hidden away inside the installer. You'll need 7zip installed to get to them (also free and open source) available from: 7-zip (dot) org

* Go to the folder where you saved wined3d.exe; right click on it, go to the 7-Zip sub-menu, and select "open archive".

* In the new 7-zip window, go into the "$SYSDIR" folder, where there are lots of DLLs and other files. You only want three of them.

* Copy "wined3d.dll", "libwine.dll", and "ddraw.dll" into your arcanum directory. (This is the same folder that has Arcanum.exe, and might be something like "C:\GOG Games\Arcanum\"). You can simply drag-and-drop them from the 7-zip window to your arcanum folder.

* Tell it to replace existing files, namely the original ddraw.dll (or you could move or rename the original ddraw.dll if you feel like it)

* Start the game and it just might run a lot smoother now! It worked for me at least.

(Obviously you should only attempt this process if you're comfortable doing so; worst case scenario, you might need to reinstall Arcanum if something really strange goes wrong. Attempt at your own risk, not reviewed by the FDA, for external use only, and so on)