I had played Descent when it first came out, but unfortunately lost the CD's, but thanks to this site...I can now play what use to be one of my favorite games. So....I am looking for a good joystick to play Descent with. I am running Win7 Home Prem. Any suggestions would be helpful :-)

Thanks

Personally, I use Logitech Extreme 3D Pro.

I can only speak for Descent 3 (which I know is quite different from the original game), but my Logitech extreme 3d pro performs quite well in that game. It is a relatively cheap joystick and it has all the functions you need, though it lacks force feedback.

I used to swear by the logitech wingman extreme back when I had descent first time around.
Unfortunately, when my latest one died, I couldn't get a replacement, but the extreme 3d pro seems to be it's successor!

I like my Logitech Extreme 3D Pro. It's fairly inexpensive (~ $30 I think), works well and is and widely available. I think I bought mine at Best Buy.

I personally recommed a microsoft sidewinder joystick, that's what I use.

Amen. I had one of them sturdy metal sticks, too. ;) They don't make them like that anymore. Case in point: the sticks Logitech sells these days are cheap in every which way. I don't recommend them.

My current baby is one of CH's Flightstick Pros. It may not have much of any bells and whistles, but it gets the job done quite nicely.

I used a couple of different joysticks with Descent back in the day, and I'm sure nobody's making any of them anymore. However, I will say that the single most important feature that you want is a stick that will twist for z-axis control. More buttons are better, of course, but you really only need a few on the stick itself. The big thing is being able to control all three axes. The rest is secondary.

The 3D pro does this (as well has having more buttons than you'll ever use!) My 3d pro has outlasted 2 computers so far....

In my experience Logitech delivers good mid-range products. Almost always worth their price, but don't expect top of the line. CH-Flight sticks are top of the line products, but that is also reflected by their price. The most basic CH-joystick costs 4 times as much as my current joystick, at least over here.

I still have to reach for my keyboard when playing games like MechWarrior 4 or IL-2... 12 buttons (plus a PoW cap that I usually re-configure to act as another 4 buttons, for order giving) simply is not enough. Some HOTAS joysticks offers over 25 buttons and ways to make each button work like multiple buttons (through switches and such).