While that video card is pretty sweet, it's like putting putting 12" wide slicks on a car with a moped engine compared to the rest of your system. While the device is there to get the power to the ground, you don't have enough horsepower to begin with. Your CPU can't churn out the math necessary to give that video card enough work to do.
Your bottleneck here is the CPU and RAM. The easiest and cheapest upgrade you can do right now is to get yourself at least 128 Megs of RAM, but 256 should be affordable. RAM is very cheap right now, you can get a 256 Meg stick of PC133 Ram for under $100 USD and that's top quality stuff. I just checked Crucial's site for you, so check out what you would need to order:
http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.asp?model=Dimension+XPS+D300&x=7&y=12 You can add a 128 Meg stick for $62.00 US. That's pretty damn cheap. Crucial is a very good company to deal with, they are the direct sales arm of Micron, which manufactures the RAM itself.
I think you could also drop in:
http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.asp?imodule=CT16M64S4D7E It's the same thing, but the newer, higher rated RAM. It's actually cheaper than the slower stuff, and you would be able to use it in another machine in the near future, whereas the 66 Mhz stuff is already obsolete. However, you do take the chance that it won't work right in your Dell, as some of those early PII's had some weird toejam for RAM systems like 168 Pin EDO RAM and nothing else will work in them. If you buy the one for that particular system, it will definately work, but you'll never be able to use it in a more modern machine.
More RAM will definately help, but it may not get your framerate to where you want it to be. The only way to driver that card for 1024x768 32 Bit and FSAA is likely going to be a mainboard/CPU/Ram update. Basically a new machine, especially since it's an OEM box so you'd need a new case/power supply as well. If you bothered to go that far, you would cripple it with a slow hard drive, so you'd want a new HD as well.
Your likely better off to sell this one and get a new one to be honest. Or, do what I do, upgrade the old one and use it as a server and order yourself a new box.
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Sean "Lephturn" Conrad - Aces High Chief Trainer
A proud member of the mighty Flying Pigs
http://www.flyingpigs.comCheck out
Lephturn's Aerodrome for AH articles and training info!
