I just purchased the game, and when I try to start a new game and Diego begins speaking, the game heavily glitches with regards to graphics. It leads to the game either locking up or becoming extremely laggy.

Is there anyway to fix this?

I'm guessing you have an Nvidia video card? You need to update your drivers to version 260.89 or higher for the Gothic games to work correctly. You can download the latest Nvidia drivers from this page.

Hmm I had hoped the nvidia problem was preventing the game from even starting for those who had it.

My dilemma is I have a notebook that apparently is not supported by any nvidia drivers since 259. I guess I am just screwed.

Thank you for the response though :)

Perhaps not; that happened to me there and other places a lot and I have an ATI card. I don't know how to fix it but my workaround was to save a lot. Turning off the computer (when it freezes, it freezes - even "CNTRL-ALT-DEL" doesn't work) then restarting generally repairs it for a while. Unfortunately, Gothic II does this too but a lot less.