2d Panels on a laptop

I got this question the other day and I thought I should answer it, since I've seen it in a few threads since we shipped:

"Since I use FSX as a real training device, I would like to know if in the incoming patch there will be an optimization for 2d panels and 16:10 screen ratio, since nowaday all laptop on the market have this ratio and it's impossible to find one with the OLD 4:3 ratio."

First of all, awesome on the real training device deal. We love hearing that. I am assuming that by "optimization for 2d panels and 16:10 screen ratio", this person means that they want to be able to run flightsim at 16:10 and not see the panels stretch. The short answer to this question is no. The longer answer is that 2d panels are actually quite expensive to create (in time, in finding a 2d artist who can do them well and in the money of paying that artist for a year and a half) and creating a whole bunch of different resolutions for each panel would be very difficult and cost-prohibitive. However, the team has suggested a couple of workarounds:

1. Put the game into "windowed" mode and rescale the window to 4:3 aspect ratio when flying with 2d Panels turned on. Admittedly, this is annoying and a bit of a hack, but if you really don't like stretched panels and no blank space, it will do the trick.

2. You can turn off panel stretching in FSX.CFG:

[PANELS]

PANEL_STRETCHING=0

The second option will result in blank space on the edges of the panel display. It just depends on which method you prefer to work with.