There were 2 commercial patches I think - and a couple of community patches (which I've installed).
Game seems fairly stable - crashed once when trying to backtrack to a previous area. Has given an out of stack error on a couple of reloads, but apart from that (touch wood). I've bumped up the details and it can start to chug in some of the more detailed areas, but still playable.
Have also bumped up the vegetation draw distance. Oblivion's better in terms of drawing distant scenery (gothic has obvious glitches - particularly when looking out to sea), but Gothic's vegetation is more detailed in the close up and makes better use of bumpmapping and dynamic shadows to give detail that sometimes approaches photo-realistic.
I should add that once I'd cleaned out the castle, I came back down to the orc camp expecting trouble - but they'd forgotten about me by then. So I snuck into one of their huts and lifted some of their gear. Discovered a human prisoner. Paid a bribe to the head orc to have him released. So this guy said he was going to try and rebuild the castle - so a nice sense of 'closure' there.
Game seems fairly stable - crashed once when trying to backtrack to a previous area. Has given an out of stack error on a couple of reloads, but apart from that (touch wood). I've bumped up the details and it can start to chug in some of the more detailed areas, but still playable.
Have also bumped up the vegetation draw distance. Oblivion's better in terms of drawing distant scenery (gothic has obvious glitches - particularly when looking out to sea), but Gothic's vegetation is more detailed in the close up and makes better use of bumpmapping and dynamic shadows to give detail that sometimes approaches photo-realistic.
I should add that once I'd cleaned out the castle, I came back down to the orc camp expecting trouble - but they'd forgotten about me by then. So I snuck into one of their huts and lifted some of their gear. Discovered a human prisoner. Paid a bribe to the head orc to have him released. So this guy said he was going to try and rebuild the castle - so a nice sense of 'closure' there.