Hi all,
I am currently trying to track down the reason(s) my framerate is so poor (around 10 fps or less) on some, but not all, space maps. A consistent example of this is the B'Tran Cluster zone map, but I can have the same problems on mission maps at all. My framerate rarely drops to unplayable levels on ground missions.
My PC is on the lower end of the system requirements, but not at the bottom. The in-game video settings are set at the "Recommended" level, which in this case is level "three," just before Maximum detail. I have tried moving the slider to the farthest left and playing around with my screen resolution, but the framerate didn't really improve significantly.
In short (too late!) - here are my system specs. What do you think is bottlenecking me? I'd rather you not say "everything" if you can help it, but please be honest!

Intel Core2 Duo E6550 2.33 GHz
2 GB RAM (1.87 GHz)
NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT
Comments
I noticed that STO puts one hell of a strain on any kind of graphics card, I'm well above recommended system specs and still get slowdowns because my graphic adapter stalls...
Your Geforce 8500GT is most probably what is slowing you down. While it is a fine card for everyday office use and moderate gaming (at relatively low resolutions), it is in essence a scaled down version of the 8600GT with less computing power (not even half of the already not exactly fast 8600GT) and cheaper memory and especially in STO, that memory bottleneck will be very noticeable.
Upgrading that card would probably be your best bet, and can be done without emptying your wallet if you're looking at a mid-range card.
I'd look into something along the lines of a Radeon HD 5670 or Geforce GT240. None of these are high end cards, but should offer decent performance, low power consumption and a reasonable price point without being slowed down by your CPU.
(Edit: Typos killed -.-)
I should also say that after playing with the individual video settings, I got my biggest performance boost by disabling soft particles. That alone seems to have made the game much more playable.
Thanks again!