Is anyone willing to share the default DOSBox settings that GOG ship with Redguard? I have the game on CD and have not been able to get it to run without the framerate being extremely choppy. And trust me, I've tried plenty of settings.

Also, what version of DOSBox is GOG using exactly?

Just to make you guys jealous, I've attached a photo of the big box and its contents.

They use a customized version of DosBox 0.73 (search for "Daum Dosbox"), which seems to contain some Glide stuff (sorry, I can't give you any details).
The main DosBox parameters are
output=opengl
machine=pentium_mmx
The rest is straightforward.

Have you seen this article: [url=http://uesp.net/wiki/Redguard:Installation_guide]http://uesp.net/wiki/Redguard:Installation_guide[/url] ?

I have the original version also. I use SVN DAUM version of DOSBOX. I set the cycles around 76000.
You need to download nGlide 1.03 to get smooth 3DFX video and install it (GOG uses it ).

GOG uses Daum Dosbox, too.

Do they? Daum iss specifically famous for supporting savestates. And official line of DOSBoxes (which is also used by GOG) doesn't support that function. Or did GOG make exception for Redguard specifically?

Yes, I've seen the article and used DOSBox Daum as well when I was experimenting with Redguard. DOSBox SVN Daum does integrates Glide and as far as I know, it's required for emulating any 3Dfx game.

Your output and machine settings are different than how I remember I set them. Let's see if it makes any difference. When I was trying to get Redguard running, nGlide was still on 1.02. In the 1.03 changelog from here, the only performance-related changes mentioned are:

-improved performance of geometry rendering and texture creation

Does anyone here play with a high enough framerate to make combat at least somewhat enjoyable?

(Edit: nGlide 1.04 has been out for a while as well.) I guess they didn't have a choice. The official DOSBox releases are unable to run Redguard, as far as I know, because they lack 3D rendering capabilities.

If you open the file dosbox.conf in Redguard\DOSBOX, the first line entry starts with "This is the configuration file for DOSBox SVN-Daum". The dosbox_redguard.conf file in Reguard states that it's a conf file for DOSBOX 0.73.
Thus GOG uses a Daum build based on DOSBOX 0.73.

Hm. Looks like I have modified the conf file myself (possibly based on some advice I found somewhere in a forum). The original one provided by GOG has different parameters indeed (namely output=overlay and machine=svga_s3).
I just started the game twice, using both configurations, and both seem to work, both with acceptable performance.

Mmm, are you sure you didn't copy that file there for reference (or maybe GOG staff used it for tests and forgot to delete it, though I doubt)?)

SVN Daum has different numbering for versions (which isn't tied to standard DOSBox numbering) and their version number isn't stated in default conf file. If actual redguard.conf states that it uses DOSBox 0.73, it means it uses standard DOSBox and not SVN Daum.

It's SVN Daum. Get over it.

correct but it also uses nglide as you will see the dll files in the directory.
he was asking for settings as he doesnt have this version.
What I was saying is my original cd version runs better than the version shown here. its daum version based on dosbox 0.74 and uses nglide to play

Also to OP this game must run in fullscreen to use nglide..do not try to run in a window it will be choppy.

Sounds like good advice (fullscreen).

I have the original CD's, too, but not the PC on which I had Redguard running at the time (nor do I remember what the graphics card was - it may well have been a 3DFx card, but the PC may have been relatively weak for Redguard), so I can't compare, and memories are not reliable.
DosBox+nGlide means two emulators, which means two performance bottlenecks and two chances that something goes wrong, so it's no surprise that performance and stability are somewhat worse than an original installation on an older PC with a 3DFx card would be. On the other hand, newer PC's are definitely faster, so I would expect the performance of the emulated version of Redguard to be ok.
I myself can't complain.