You've chosen to "benchmark" your first PC gaming experience against a piece of software that has exceptionally steep system requirements.

For starters, I believe that the video card you just spec'd doesn't comply with that game's minimum system requirements. I seem to recall BF1942's readme states that it requires a card with 64mb of video memory and onboard T&L-- meaning only the most recent cutting edge cards will match that requirement.

Your system should be fine to play most other games. Give Quake 3 a go and see what kinds of frame rates you get.