I have a Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 and it doesn't seem to be working with Freespace, oh well, I'll make do with the mouse, love this site!

That's odd, I have a Saitek USB joystick and it works fine. Maybe you need to get FS2Open, which is discussed in another thread. That has various improvements to the graphics and compatibility.

Run Freespace2.exe and go the joystick section and make sure current joystick is set correctly. Post if that doesn't work, theres other things you can try.
Edit: Sorry, are you talking about Freespace 1 or 2?

Hi. If I want to control old games with my gamepad I usually use program called Xpadder. You can assign keyboard keys to gamepad buttons and emulate mouse with joypads. Xpadder should work with joysticks as well. And it's freeware ;)

I have the same problem with both actually

I have a Saitek Evo Force and i have this problem with both games also. I'm Running Vista 64 with the most current 64 bit evo force drivers.

Are you guys using FS2Open?

I rolled back my stick drivers to an older version. It works fine now.

logitech wingman force - Vista 32 ultimate - can't get FS2 to recognize joystick - joystick does work fine in windows control panel and is calibrated. thanks!

Some older games don't fully use the windows joystick routines and can only see the controller in slot 1. The control panel lets you select which controller these older games will see. JoyIDs (available here is easier to use, but I dont know if it works under Vista.

I was searching how to use my Sidewinder Freestyle Pro under FS2, as my pc don't have any gameport anymore and the pad is usb plugged. Couldn't get it to work in the game, then I found what I was searching for: I launched the FreeSpace2.exe located in the GOG.com-Freespace 2 directory, then Setup --> Joystick, and finally found my nice joypad in the list :)
Happy ^_^
And yup, I should have read the manual before launching the game, everything must be in it ;)
Still, hope that may help somebody.

Ha! going to freespace/freespace2.exe fixed it. I feel dumb, oh well, hope this thread helps others.