As soon as I calibrate my joystick the game drops down to a crawl. Anyone else had this? I'm using a T-Flight Hotas X.

same for me.... albeit with a ps4 controller

if i map it to the keyboard (with input mapper) it works, but then it has the same precision issues as the keybord, so i'll stick with that....
note: the controller works, at least the fire, torpedo fire, target slection, etc. buttons.... but neither analog stick (e.g. up/down/left/right)...

Same here with a XBox 360 Controller. :(

For me changing cycles in dosbox conf file from max to 70000 solved the problem.
I'm running software version of the game, 3Dfx may require more cycels.
It was tested with XBox 360 Controller.