Howdy Aussie,
That seems to have done the trick. The frame rate using PANEL is the same as PANEL.1, around 94-111 FPS. When I took a look at the config files, I did notice differences between the two. PANEL would have render 3D window=0, where as PANEL.1 has render 3d window=1, the window size ratios between the two were also different with PANEL having 1.0, and PANEL.1 having 1.7778 or 1.333.