Help on MTW2 would be great...thanks!

So I was all excited to get my newegg box, which of course meant I would not be enjoying my games till at least 10 things went wrong.

The short story:
Was running a 6600 gt on an Asus A8nE
1gb mem with a Maxtor HDD
Athlon 64 1.8

When I got my new order I discovered the mobo does not support IDE hardware (I was going to eventually upgrade my hdd and dvd drive but in the interest of $$$ I thought I could hold off, looks like I get to pay shipping twice.)

Short story long I ended up installing my new EVGA 260 216 on my old mobo/mem/cpu.

I expected, since MTWII is an old game, and people say they play brand new games with this card ramped all the way up, that I would be enjoying my stodgy old RTS with things maxed out without breaking a sweat.

Now, when I open MTW the "auto detect" video settings give me some ghetto resolution like 900x700 (something like that). So I said no way, turned everything up, and MTW went crazy. The background animation for the opening menu freezes, starts, freezes again. When I shuht the game down the music keeps going etc... Did a fresh install and same thing, even with the auto detect settings. (PS on a Dell 2209w if that matters)

I just want to play MTW and Empire (once I finally get sick of this) in all their maxed out glory. From the specs and reviews I know I have screwed something up, or my cpu is soooo old it is limiting my 260? Things just cant be easy.

If you've read this far thanks, and any hardware, software help is appreciated. I am noob and have low-moderate knowledge (two builds and reading you all on these forums) but am willing to grab a screwdriver and try most things.

My grapshics card should be able to whoop these games right (do I sound like someone who agonized over the right card for months?)

Thanks

Just need a coupla things mate.
Can you grab cpu-z and check out your mobo model (specifically the PCI-e slots).
Also i aint great with the Dell gear and i cant find your PSU, it comes up as a monitor.

Also, were you trying to run MTW2 on your 6600GT and if so how was the performance.
I can guaruntee that your CPU would bottleneck a 260, and also bear in mind the title isnt ancient, its only 2 years old so the recommended spec suggests a 1.8 Ghz CPU....and recommended specs always lie!