The first thing to determine is whether your joystick is jumpy in Windows or not. The only thing Dosbox can do is go by what Windows tells it; thus if you have problems in Windows, you will have those same problems in Dosbox.

So hit up the game controllers configuration (Start menu, type in "Controller" to see it). The calibration setup there will tell you what the OS sees from your controller/adapter combo.

As with most joystick problems issues, one of the most important Dosbox things to try is setting CPU cycles to fixed, try like Cycles=3000 in your config. The joystick reading routines in DOS are very sensitive to tick speed. Another thing to try is core=normal (slower overall CPU emulation, but better on timing issues).

I think the default in Dosbox is to treat your stick as a 4axis w/4 buttons, which sounds right for your stick. I'm pretty sure though Wing Commander only knows 2axis/2 button. If that is the case you can still use the Dosbox Mapper (http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Mapper) to create keystroke events for the other buttons/axis.

-frob

Thanks, the settings seemed to help some, although the game was a bit less responsive.
Originally, cycles was set to 4000 and Core was on auto.

The joystick responds normally in windows with appropriate movements.

Also, as for the other axis goes, the game had , and . as roll left and roll right, so I wanted to see if those could be assigned to the sticks twisting motion, I will read over the mapper.

Is this common for joysticks in DOSBox, or is it likely because although it works, it is not officially supported in Windows 7?

The mapper should allow you to assign , and . as left and right (based on one axis, whichever you choose).

You can set Cycles=5000 or any fixed number, it just helps to have it as a specific number instead of auto, which will attempt to scale and may change timing confusing the DOS joystick reading code. Just dont set it crazy high as you can give yourself other problems, Wing Commander should be fine at 5-7K on pretty much any processor.

It's a somewhat common problem in Dosbox, because sometimes the fastest way to emulate on modern hardware gives highly variable tick rates (some operations of the virtual machine just cost a lot less than others and get done faster). That's why Dosbox has the settings for fixed and predictable timing, because certain games are very dependent on specific timing, and all of the Origin titles are known to behave that way for joysticks as an example.

-Frob