Euro Truck Simulator 2 and performance issues

Hi,

I've just bought and unpacked an Alienware ASM100 i7 with Windows 8. I noticed during setup and boot that it did seem a tad slow; I updated the chipset drivers as the diagnostic suggested, then I installed Steam and Euro Truck Simulator 2.

Alas! I was in for a disappointment: the game runs painfully, painfully slow -- we are talking 1 fps, we are talking fiddling with the mouse to precisely land a click area because the movements on screen are so delayed...

I've read somewhere that I should boot it into console mode to have better performance but I cannot figure out how to do it. After login it goes straight to Windows and at no point a choice is offered.

I am not sure what to do -- I am tempted to send it back. Is the terrible performance due to a solvable issue? Any suggestion?

Many thanks!

jb