I guess many of you are already xplane users and I would expect you to upgrade just like I would. I am new and it is a real pita while I try to figure out if I can get it to my liking without spending $80 ahead of time. I have money invested in FSX as well, which is why it has to be worth it to see if I should shift where I spend my money to xplane. Other demos I have tried let you have unlimited time in a small area, or a few days unlimited until it turns off, or turns on a timer like the 10 minute one. One thing I have seen is that you have to reply on user content because things are so sparse and default aircraft are not so good. With all of this mucking about to try and make it look something like you would eventually settle on the 10 mins is just ridiculous impediment to 'demo' xplane'. So, I can certainly empathise with people new to xplane trying to give this a go. I bet Austin is his own worst enemy if the stuff I hear about him is true, if he doesn't care so much about his customers as he does about what he wants to do it could be a longer time before lots of third parties jump on like they have FSX. Those third parties need happy customers of the sim to keep going.

How does the 10 minutes time limit stop you from testing .. i have over 2 hrs testing on XPX .. others have more.

It doesn't stop me from testing, I am still at it and I have not used xplane before. I think other people may give up though. I do think it is an unnecessary imposition on people wanting to try it. I doubt very much it creates more sales for him than other demo time schemes used by other products.

I just don't see how they could release so soon. It seems that there are still serious issues. One being HDR, which I could never use as it was a slide show even with my OC'd i7 2600k. I think the release candidate will end up being nothing more than another beta. Maybe I'm wrong and the developers will get it done, but it still seems like there is considerable work ahead.Bob

I think the release candidate will end up being nothing more than another beta.

Traditionally, the release version of X-Plane is considered the first public beta of the full product. They don't exactly go out of their way to advertise it, but that's the information I've gleaned from blogs and this forum.