I have been running the game just fine. I have a 8600 GT. My settings are set to everything max and on. Hope this helps.

This may be connected to a problem where a second mouse pointer appears below and to the right of the game mouse pointer. The second pointer appears to be in the windows desktop. When you click the game mouse pointer, the pointer in the desktop also clicks, activates the desktop and stalls out the game (and locks up the computer).
I found that if I start the game by going into the game folder wherer the files are and opening Freespace.exe, --- the game console appears. If you click on settings and redetect the video card (I set it to fast clear for cut scenes) and joystick (I make sure the force feedback options are unchecked), and start the game from the console (Click the Play FreeSpace button), the game starts, the second mouse disappears, and you can play the game with no problem.