This solution was taken from:

http://www.zenithies.org/articles/5/gothic-i--gothic-ii-on-windows-7-64-bit-troubleshooting--game-won-t-start--graphics-freezes.html

What worked for me:

* Open Gothic folder on hard drive (from Steam - right-click in library, properties, local files, browse local files).

* Open the system folder

* Right-click on GOTHIC.exe and click properties.

* Go to the Compatibility tab

* Set to Run in compatibility mode for Windows XP SP 3

* Set to "Run this program as an administrator".

* In Steam, right-click on the game in library, click properties, un-check "Enable Steam Community in-game".

* Copy the 4 files in this .zip directly to the system folder in Gothic, so they are in the same location as GOTHIC.EXE.  The 4 files are d3d8.dll, ddraw.dll, libwine.dll, and wined3d.dll.

* Run Gothic - if nothing happens at all, use Ctrl-Alt-Del and end-task on SetPoint.exe in Task Manager (Processes tab) if you use a logitech mouse/kb/whatever (don't ask me why but it stops the game from running).

* The game WILL crash.

* Reset computer.

* Try game again - it should run now (will still need to end-task on SetPoint.exe in task manager processes tab though first).

Supposedly this will help with Gothic 2 as well though I haven't tested that yet myself.