Im unsure of the spec's required by FS2k, would would think that it needed at least a fast PC as you said buy with a 3D card (hardware accelerator) like a voodoo or TNT card.
Some laptops come with ATi Rage cards but these arn't super flash when it comes to 3d.
You may be running in software mode, and it has degraded the quality of the surface textures to give you a compromise and acceptable frame rates.
Can you run Quake3, half-life or any other 3d intensive games on your laptop?