I forgot to recalibrate the joystick before opening the game the first time, with embarrassing results in the training session.

They have tweaked the physics to resemble the behavior of Vipers in the new BSG. Ships in Descent:Freespace can't 'coast', as it's called in this new one, and don't have lateral attitude thrusters.

I got a late start, and didn't even get through the first scenario after training (the asteroid field). I was killed. Before then, it suffered from a lot of discontinuity in the display and audio, once I actually got into combat. Refresh rate problem?

I'm not running a hot-shit game card, and only 512 Mb RAM total. Maybe if I decrease the display resolution a little... That would be a shame, though. The graphics are really nice, much better than D:F.

Bottom line: when the full version comes out, I'm buying it. And more RAM, which I need for other stuff anyway.