[P/O W. 'Moggy' Cattermole]

So, i got a laptop for my birthday, with pretty good specs; it had the best graphics available. Unfortunately, it's widescreen, which is fine usually, except that IL2 doesn't support widescreen.
If i have it on 1600x900, the game looks as good and as detailed as on 1024x768 on my old pc, which was certainly worse in specs by some way. However, the game lags, just a bit, and that is actually rather annoying. If i run the game on 1234(?)x768 [also widescreen], the game doesn't have the lag issues but doesn't look as sharp, which is also aggravating.
Now of course, i'm quite prepared to live with that. I should add that on widescreen resolution, it displays IL2 in the middle of the screen with several inches of black on either side, so it doesn't actually appear as widescreen. If i use a normal resolution, everything appears stretched sideways. So, i was wonderingif anyone had any advice, though i shoud add that i am quite prepared to simply have the game on the lower widescreen res.