I couldn't resist and I downloaded and installed the XPlane 11 demo, keeping in mind it's still a beta... well, a demo of a beta, that is...
You get the point, I wasn't too optimistic.
Things went surprisingly well though
First of all, a very good point is the automatic installer for the sim. All in one click after choosing the install path. It's as easy as FSX-Steam.
Then I went on and started configuring the sim. Based on previous user feedbacks on the forums, I carefully set the Antialiasing setting to one crank above the minimum only, and set the reflections to minimum.
The first flight was set in Seattle Tacoma KSEA. The performance was not so bad: my FPS stayed around 23 in average.
The developpers stated clearly that the current performance of this beta version is not as good as it's supposed to be, and they are working to fix that. That means these 23 FPS I was getting are the minimum value I could get... That quite a good news, I would say.
Since I'm a FSX/P3D OrbX PNW addict, the subsequent flights were launched from Concrete Municipal and Darrington Municipal. I wanted to check how big was the demo area. I received a warning message telling the area was not covered by addons, asking me if I wanted to relocate or continue "flying over water". I chose that later one... and found some very nice mountains and forests around me, as expected. In both cases (Concrete and Darrington), the airfield was not populated with building. However, the local towns were there, and the global rendering of the landscape was quite nice, close-enough to OrbX PNW (not as detailled, but not bad). Ah yeah, I got several deers running and crossing the runway in front of me
I then tried to go a bit farther, by selecting one of the most famous airfield in the PNW area for FSX and P3D simmers: Bowerman KHQM.
This time though, the warning message was different: it told me I got out of the demo area
However, that was it. I confirmed my choice and found a very nice airfield, with buildings on it for hangars and the cafe. In fact, the rendition of the airfield was much nicer than I expected. So I took off to check the surrounding area, and compare it with the freeware Bowerman made by OrbX for PNW...
Of course, the OrbX rendition was way better, yes. There was no photorealistic ground imagery in the XPlane 11 version, and the autogen was not so accurately placed. But honnestly, the global rendition of the area was quite good nevertheless. The town was there with all the main streets, the shorelines were precise enough, the ground textures were good enough, and the XPlane 11 graphic and autogen engines were making it even better. Flying around that airfield was almost as pleasant as with FSX or P3D, which is quite surprising considering it's a demo or a totally generic area. That tells a lot about what it could be with a good addon...
Ah yes, the FPS was good in these small airports. Depending on the direction I was looking, the FPS could raise up to 35. I even decided to raise the reflections settings to "Medium", which activated the reflection of the landscape on the water surface. The FPS cost was small, like 3 FPS lost in average, something like that. So, depending on the direction, the FPS was going to a minimum of 20 up to a maximum of 33 FPS, and the sim was smooth all the time.
Ah, and no OOM errors