This article has some fixes that helped me to run DK2 properly

http://www.pcgamingbuzz.com/2011/how-to-fix-dungeon-keeper-2-from-gog/

The instructions in this article only enable 3D acceleration by changing the engine back to D3D. This is not a sure fix for most people, which is the very reason GOG has the engine set to software mode by default. For instance anyone with a AMD/ATI graphics card making this change will likely render the game unplayable for them with a black menu screen.

But if you make this change and the game actually renders correctly (either because you have an nVidia card or old drivers/OS), it will be infinitely more stable than the software mode.

If you are using ATI then you have to forget Hardware rendering. You can however tweak the game using Regedit to change the resolution (I'm using 1920x1080), command line flags like -32biteverything and finally the modded exe that allows you to zoom out further.

How is the UI when you use that resolution?

Absolutely fine actually. Just make sure you use the unlimited zoom exe or you will be way too close to the map. http://keeperklan.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=86

32 bit everything?

I tried the unlimited Zoom and setting the resolution to 1920x1080. The game looks quite nice like this. I do not remember how it looks with 3D hardware acceleration, I am not sure I even tried that when I played it the first time. Would be nice if somehow it would be possible to use Direct3D, but its actually better than I remember it with these settings.

The menu is still a bit laggy, but that is part of the game. Seems to me some people expect GoG to remake the classic games, so that they would run better than they used to. Sometimes they do run better than they used to, but that is a bonus as I see it.

I have played through the first 3 missions now. I have only got the game crashing when I tried running the game in 1024x768 and play a challenge. I have been playing the new Dungeons game quite a bit since that was released, and the game is entertaining, but it really doesn't beat Dungeon Keeper 2. Dungeons for some reason became a strange mix of Theme Park and a tower defense game, while you have your Dungeon Lord and he is cool to have, but minions should be more than just almost static defenses. Also it just doesnt feel as nice that the minions are all upgraded in level at the dungeon heart instead of from combat experience and training.

Still it has a nice hero system where I got to put heroes in jail and torture them. But having to entertain them and adding decorations to your dungeon, just feels like a chore.

The actual switches I use in the shortcut are -32biteverything -enablebumpmapping -enablebumpluminance

That's pretty much the prettiest you are going to get it looking without proper H/W acceleration support. TBH you are not missing much not having H/W rendering as DK2 was never exactly a good looking game.

When I set any resolution higher than 1027x768 in regedit, the game crashes after loading a mission...

I assume you mean 1024x768. I have been able to set mine to 1600x900 without it crashing. However, it doesn't put it to anything but 1024x768, yet.

Well, game looks nice enough in 1024x768 , but I hope GOG staff will improve game stability, and everyone will be able to play on their native res (for me 1440x900) and with hardware acceleration.

Now, the screen flickers black in menu , some nasty artefacts sometimes show during gameplay, etc etc.

But they said they're trying to fix all of that, so all we need is to wait for updated installer.

I am not sure I can see what they are doing those settings. But then I prefer the lower resolutions for this game. 800x600 seems to be the best one. The text becomes too small anyway in 1920x1080, and the game actually lags a bit. Seems to me the textures and everything was designed to be seen in 800x600 anyway.

I am not sure what hardware rendering will add to the game. I think maybe the water will look better, but to me it looks like I remember the game, and it is running very well and with no crashes in windows 7 with the settings:

dkii -32bitevrything -disablegamma -enablebumpmapping -enablebumpluminance

With hardware acceleration off and using the resolution 800x600. It can run in 1600x1200 or 1920x1080, but it becomes a bit laggy, and does not seem to become much better to look at, since mostly it just makes stuff smaller it seems to me.

I do not think those resolutions are meant to be used without hardware rendering. How about a 3DFx emulator? Maybe that would help? The menu says something about 3D FX.

I've looked into it and it seems the 3dfx hardware mode only supports 16-bit rendering so even if you can get it working you are going to trade off some quality and as I remember DK2 wasn't that good looking even with H/W rendering.

Is that 16 bit colors? Because I see no difference when it comes to 16 or 32 bit colors in this game either. I might be able to see the difference if I look closely and have two screenshots to compare, but I see no in-game setting to switch this game to 32 bit. So again I doubt the game actually looks better in 32 bit than it does in 16 bit, since it might just be a bunch of possible colors that wont show. I am pretty sure this game was released around the time it was quite new to even have 16 bit colors. But maybe I am confusing it with some other kind of rendering.

I thought the same when I noticed the 3DFX logo, but I couldn't find any information regarding DK2 using Glide. Nor do any Glide wrappers show DK2 as a supported game. I tried different engineid values with a wrapper installed to no avail.

I think 3Dfx was a sponsor but the game actually only supported D3D hardware acceleration.

Me too, all the other engine IDs just seems to do nothing, and change back to 4.