Frame rates and tweaking

[Roland]

Thank you for all your suggestions and advice. To add a bit more info: I'm using the latest Nvidia drivers from their website, and I have a 768 Meg static virtual memory partitiion. Lowering the resolution to 800x600 doesn't seem to have a significant effect.
I've defragged the hard drive, reinstalled the video drivers and lowered every option there is on the in-game video menu.  I've also tried booting with all of the normal startup items turned off (as Blizzard suggest on their webpage). Heck, I've even turned the sound off.

Like I said in the first post, I'm flat out of ideas. Buying a shiny new video card and some more memory would be a really fine idea, but so would remaining married, so hardware upgrades are just not in the near future.
-DarkCrown
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Then, unfortunately, you're SOL. There's nothing more you can do shy of overclocking your video card, and I wouldn't recommend that unless you sunk a small chunk of change into a decent cooling solution. Anywhere from $20 - $50 would be sufficient, depending on what you get and how far you want to take it. A good HSFU (heatsink / fan unit) with some heatsinks / heat spreaders for your video card RAM could make a HUGE difference. Also, Arctic Silver thermal grease (SILVER, not that white ceramic crap, but SILVER) can make a world of difference as well.

Here's what I'd suggest, if you absolutely cannot afford a new video card:
-Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Grease - $7.59
-Vantec IceBerq 4 Pro - $13.49
-OCZ BGA RAMsinks - $11.99

1) Take out your video card, and remove the HSFU (if any), along with any RAMsinks (if any, although it's not likely there will be any). Be careful, as sometimes heatsinks are applied with thermal tape, rather than grease or just screwed on. If it won't come off easy, DO NOT FORCE IT. Throw it in the freezer for about 2 hours, then pull it out and GENTLY pull off the HSFU.
2) Attatch the RAMsinks with the thermal tape to ALL your RAM chips, on both sides (if applicable; may want to do it anyway, even if the chips are only on one side, but be careful of space restrictions).
3) Apply some thermal grease to the GPU, then spread evenly with a flat piece of plastic or business card. Be sure to apply a thin-to-medium layer of grease - enough so that it will contact both the GPU and the new HSFU without dripping out everywhere.
4) Attatch the HSFU cooler to the GPU.
5) Insert your card back into your system and test it out.
6) Download Coolbits 2.0, allowing you to unlock the card's overclocking panels (be forewarned, any OCing will void your warranty!).
7) IF SO DESIRED, begin overclocking your card in VERY small increments, making sure to "stress test" the card after each change (i.e. play a video game like WoW; putting WoW in Windowed Mode works exceptionally well for this sort of testing). Try to avoid making changes in larger than 5MHz increments, and preferably make them in 1MHz - 2MHz increments. Should you run into any video freezing, artifacting, tearing, etc., reduce your clock speeds back until you find the relative "maximum" setting. Don't be surprised if, sooner or later, you have to downgrade the overclocking by a couple MHz, as ambient temperatures in your case / room may affect performance.

All told, this will cost you about $40 plus an hour of your time, but it will be a way to improve your video performance without sinking a ton of money into a new card. You won't get great results, but you should be able to push your minimum FPS up to around 10 - 15 through these methods.

If you won't even do this, I can't suggest anything more to you. You bought the wrong card, and unfortunately you're stuck with it for awhile. In any case, good luck.