The gold version of Dungeon Keeper originally came with high resolution textures for the faster Pentium Pro machines of the time that made the game look as good as it does today with KeeperFX. Trouble is the GOG version of the game uses Dosbox to run the game and dosbox can only emulate a slow Pentium 1 machine at most. So when you manually enable these textures with Alt+R in-game, the game looks perfect but is unplayably laggy.

This guide outlines the steps to use the more powerful Dosbox-X that can emulate Pentium Pro all the way up to Pentium III machines, allowing you to play the gog version of the game with better looks, lag free and as intended for those who want to play the vanilla Dungeon Keeper and Deeper Dungeons without KeeperFx bugs, modifications to game balance and playability. These instructions are for windows but Doxbox-X is cross compatible with Linux and macOS.

TLDR; Replace GOG's dosbox with dosbox-x, configure it and point a shortcut to dosbox-x to launch the game.

1. Install Dungeon Keeper Gold (current GOG version 10.1)
2. Download Dosbox-X from here (current version dosbox-x-mingw-win64-20240702034526.zip) and extract the mingw folder to C:\GOG Games\Dungeon Keeper Gold\ (or wherever you installed DK)
3. Right click dosbox-x.exe in the mingw folder and create shortcut
4. Right click the shortcut > Properties and modify the "Target" field so that it reads like this:
"C:\GOG Games\Dungeon Keeper Gold\mingw\dosbox-x.exe" -conf "..\dosbox-x.conf" -conf "..\dosboxDK_single.conf" -noconsole -c "exit"
This shortcut will be used to launch the game so move it somewhere convenient like your desktop and rename it approriately
5. Copy the dosbox-x.conf file in the mingw folder to the root game folder C:\GOG Games\Dungeon Keeper Gold\
6. Open C:\GOG Games\Dungeon Keeper Gold\dosbox-x.conf in a text editor and change the following fields (listed in order of appearance):

fullscreen = true
fullresolution = desktop
output = openglnb
maximize = true
# Load the game faster by not waiting for the 1 second bios prompt
fastbioslogo = true
startbanner = false
# vesa_nolfb allows you to use the maximum 16MB of video memory
machine = vesa_nolfb
# RAM
memsize = 128
# The game looks crisp as is so there's no longer any need to take the performance hit of using scalers
scaler = none
# The masximum supported video memory
vmemsize = 16
core = dynamic
cputype = pentium_iii
# The cycles number is highly system dependent. If you're still experiencing lag, try changing it to cycles=max to see if it fixes the issue. If the game runs too fast, try reducing it to between 100000 and 180000.
cycles = fixed 200000
turbo = true

7. Run the game and test. The game should detect the higher system configuration and automatically enable high res textures but if you're upgrading from an old installation, you can also do this manually with Alt+R in-game.

The above settings should suffice but I find using glide (a 3d acceleration card of the time) improves performance maybe another 5%. You can find glide instructions here if you want to try it. dgvoodoo offers 64bit versions of the glide wrapper for 64 bit systems. Place the glide wrapper dll in the dosbox-x folder and change/add the following to the dosbox-x config:
glide = true
# under [cpu]
ignore undefined msr = true

Known issues:
At cycles=[100k+ or max] the deeper dungeons level selector scrolls so fast that you cannot select some of the later levels. A workaround is to set cycles=50000, select the level you want, save and reset cycles to your preferred value before loading and playing the save.

Isnt it should be Windows exe file bundled in original Gold edition? I dont remember and lazy to double check that info. I just asume it was Dos+Win Gold edition where those mentioned higher quality textures was added supposedly to be used in Win exe. Like many else games (incl other Bullfrog games that im sure was Dos+Win).

The original Gold edition (at least the one I had) was indeed win+dos. But Gog's gold edition appears to be dos only. In any case the guide applies to any of the dos versions of the game.

For the windows edition I've had some success running low-res mode with cnc-ddraw (for anyone wondering just set resolutions to 1 in cnc-ddraw config) but the best way to play the game is definitely high res dos and that is only possible with dosbox-x. I do love what the KeeperFX folks are doing but the current release (1.1.0 i think) is way too buggy to play the vanilla campaign as intended.

Thanks for info. Thats always would be useful.

Yeah. Wrappers and emulators always was and remain are better ways to play as indented. Whcih all cool stuff and huge work made fan-mades always remain as alternatives. New cool things. And some missing or changed (not imroved just changed) content. Sadly most ppl even here (on Good OLD Games forum) spread the opinion that any new are 100% better a priori: new titles, official remakes, fan remakes.
Blindly cheer them hide their disadvantages... and real advantages. How care it would seem for "hd resolutions win10 compatibility" - thats achievable with wrappers. But many ppl care only for that.
And their devs are same. Cannot properly describe own project. Just win10/hd/new=better/old=bad software bad developers i know better how to code (official publsihers or fanmade today they use the same words share same way to advertise own product, for real the same)/fixing un-exsisted bugs. And as the last in the list - some real cool improvements or real bug fixes.

Some project a bit better in keep original "as intended" campaign modes. Some worse at it. Anyway always should remain the one topic for original-clean way, with or without wrappers and emulators.

The hope is that GOG packages DK1 with dosbox-x by default rather than people going through the current process of "I bought DK1 but it isn't working properly, how do I run the game?" > "Use keeperfx"

As for the keeperfx devs, well imagine trying to add a feature requested by a fan only to have 5 random things break at the same time that you implement it. Now imagine doing this for years, for no pay, in your free time and only motivated by your love for the game (which is itself being tested with all the bug reports and complaints). I agree that a lot of things could be done better but what can you expect from a 30 year old game with only volunteers trying to keep it alive in their spare time?

I not so good at staying aside of insult some persona. I try blame the situation in general. Open-source itself is an issue. Exactly cause of what you just said above. It is volunteer "contributors" work. Random by design. Some broken code exist dor devade and barely fixed by apply some code-tweaks above. And then new above. When someone - of users of such projects, who not really knew or care what they talk about - said old game have broken bad code and opensource remake are newer=better, rewrited feom scratch as open-source - they talk about really scratched not properly writed code. Initially scratched its them goes from old code. All that github. The best example are Warzone 2100 Resurrection Project. There was critical iseues exist in decades and bare tweaks based on broken code. Literally based on it. Original Wz2100 features got removed then. Now they restored but there is still bugs in AI for AI features been initially advantages of original that one strategy game. Cool units AI+pathfinding become broken/rewireted-prohibited (and minor bugs with few vehicles).

CorsixTH for Bullfrog's Theme Hospital dont have such bugs as i know. It have rewrited earthquakes mechanics (incorrectly affect only campaign), new random things. And still lafk of rats (entirely, empty holes randomly appear). It is have new features, new Editor and the whole new Skirmish /imroved multiplayer. And yet stack in its issues for full decade. Windows version are better for campaign.

Its not always issue in exact persons. Its about time. They are volunteers and superwise + rewrite the whole code is full-time job to do. To do for paid. No one do that for free.
We shouldn't blame fans for such delays in bring original/new features/fixes. But we shouldn't blindly promote such remakes just as "newer=better, win10 support".

As i remember Dungeon Keeper share the same situation with Theme Hospital in their original forms. It have only campaign and multiplayer. Skirmish/Custom mode is entirely new features, new life for old game.
Im not so familiar with whcih KeeperFX have missing/changed from original mechanics and how its affect campaign. As i remember its same as CorsixTH targeted at Multiplayer, Skirmish-Custom mode and some new features (incl widescreen resolutions).
Not the campaign content improvements in original code. And i absolutely dont know how its bring back in actual code state of KeeperFX. Always worth to intall and try it.
Always worth to keep original.

As for GOGs. They use own forks. Forks of ScummVM (not compatible with original or with DosBox cause of custom exes). Forks of DosBox(called -CS for CloudSaves and just that). Some games build with another fork of another fork with Glide emulator build-in.
Either GOGs can use their fork of Glide-based DosBox, or DosBox-CS. They dont use any else. So its 0% chance it will happen for DosBox-x* fork(s).
Maybe Glides one are enough for DK in HQ mode?

While switch custom/user-/post-launch- generated files path from AppData to inner cloud_saves folder is only forked change, it make un-happening of actual uptodate build of DosBox. All GOGs are one-two builds outdated cause they all are custom builds only. There is like... 0% chance for uptodate regular DosBox to appear here.