goldelks your new pooter will run AH just fine. As far as running the high res pack at 1024x768, experiment with it a bit. You won't know what it will do untill you try it out.
My best guess is, that running at 512 with all detail sliders maxed out you will see a huge diffrence in what you have seen before.
You should be able to at least run your screen resolution at 1024x768 (or better) and 512, as a start. Tweak away young fella (or old fella..u never know these days ). It's all uphill from here!
Seriously, you are looking at a huge improvement over what you had before.
Animated water?....looks really good from ships and PT boats, from the air...well...maybe we just ain't used to it yet.
ps...appreciated your post about warps. <> Sir!
cheers,
RTR