There is ways to make a potato a super potato:

Lower resolution 1024x768 or even to 640x480.

Use a light GNU/Linux OS etc.. (But again SS doesn't support Linux natively (SS isn't a Linux game, support OpenGL! dam u!!!))

Issue also is SS doesn't support 1024x768 or lower resolution cause some of the GUI dialog's are just simply too big, would need to modify them or just move the buttons that are out of the screen to somewhere else.

Full screen mode will also reduce lag.

You could also go through the Star Sonata 2's texture folder and reduce and compress the textures to smaller dimensions (Fireworks batch process or other software).

Remove/disable all bloat software that runs in the background like socializing software, virus scanners, etc..

Disable background services which are located in Window's case: Component Services window (Only disable what you know about).

Change windows theme to performance mode via the System Properties window under the advance tag.

Aim is to reduce RAM/Processor usage so you can use those resources towards w/e software your attempting to run optimally.

Currently I'm a big advocate of Solid State Drives as a hardware upgrade, cause essentially its like having "low tier RAM" as your primary storage device.

Hope this helps a bit.

The 10-year Star Sonata con: hiking performance requirements so you eventually disable your virus scanner to play.

Markoz: A lot of that has been done, bar disabling AV software...

That's why it's taken 7 years, the game has got progressively more and more hungry, it's not even pretty to play with HAVING to do all this shit just to function.

During my time being in a call centre you wont believe how many clients have Norton + another 2+ virus scanners on top all working at the same time.

If you manage to get through to me I just remote desktop and sort it, done lol (I don't work there anymore thank god).

I didn't go through this entire thread, but did you even try to run the Beta Client and see how that improves your gameplay? If anything, just send Jey123456 a private message and let him help you out.

Star Sonata is a game released only for Windows, yet admins want it to be playable on Linux and OS X. Yet they implemented it in DirectX technology which is not compatible with either.
Where's logic in that?

I've never seen any other game dropping graphics to the '80s level just to maintain fps and I honestly believe I will never see one besides SS.
I also don't believe this is matter of having people, there are a lot of small indie groups producing good quality games on multiple platforms. The difference is, they've got passion and plan for a game which I can't see in Star Sonata.
Namely, I can't see JeffL to have any plan for how Star Sonata should look like in future and how it should be implemented and that's the reason for all this mess imo.

and they probably have a lot of kickstarter funds to throw on bearded opengl programmers

Well.
Maybe if u have little funds, you should plan and do stuff wisely.
Atm, I'm seeing Jey playing mole mash with bugs poping out on different machines and OSes.

ss has the efficiency of a hummer engine, your desktop might be able to run recent games with 50-60fps yet starsonata will be wutt wutt in da butt fps drops from 60 to 5 in big ass laser beam battles and projectile warfare etc.

Well in 2014 DirectX has been announced to have a Open Source version coming out so if SS waits like 5+~ years it should be by then for GNU/Linux (or possibly DirectX will be dead by then if something new comes along)..

+ I found this while looking for bugs in the website:

Reducing Lag: http://support.starsonata.com/knowledgebase.php?article=5