hiiii,
i am implimenting firmware for bipolar stepper motor(full step).
i heared that ther is somthing s/w to create stepper acceleraton & deceleraton timer freq. (i.estepper acceleraton & deceleraton table ).
You will find that ramping the rate that steps are generated to speed up or slow down the stepper will work better that a start/stop control, especially if the motor has a significant load.
This is also the only technique which avoids mechanical resonance, which will bring a stepper to its knees. Most of them don't bother to stop there however.