Hey, i have bought Descent 1 and 2 recently, and I have been playing 1 some. However, I am wondering if there are fixes for two problems I have been having:
1) When my ship is hit by a shot, there is about 2 seconds of lag until things return to normal.
2) Graphically artifacts, such as when the game starts and there is a "gray" block over some of the control panel. That is one example, but it is a bigger deal when in this games version of cutscenes.
Basic overview of my computer: Vista 32 bit, Amd Turion 64 X2, ATI x1200, and 2 GB of ram.

I have the same problem, My rig is running XP SP2 on an Athlon 64 X2 6400+ w/ SLI'd 9800GTX+s
The only work around I've found is make the game run in a window instead of full screen. If the window is too small, lower your desktop resolution. The game refuses to load when I try run it in compatibility mode. Someone mentioned disabling SLI, I tried that and it did nothing.

Alright.
I have noticed that for the graphical artifacts alt-tabbing does the trick.
I don't know if it does the trick for the lag when hit, but I think I had less issues to a degree.
Hm, I will consider doing what you said. Maybe set the Pc to lower res when I play the game?
As a note, I did disable catalyst 3d ai or something like that . You don't have to worry about that since you are using Nvidia, not ati.

You can try using the D1X Rebirth or D2X Rebirth for D1 and D2. Just Google D1X Rebirth and you'll get the link.
The graphical issue is one with ATI cards. It happens in Descent 3 also and alt=tabbing fixes it.