So I finally ran out of memory in x-plane 32-bit for the first time. At least it didn't crash -- just advised me that it would not load any more scenery, so I was able to complete my flight to my destination.
Prompted by this occurrence, I finally gave the 64-bit xplane and PE plugin a try. Appears to work fine, although I only did a comms check and not a full flight.
I spent 2 hours flying day/night/clear/stormy all around Seattle area on the XP10 Demo. I was happy with the experience, so I used my Paypal credits and picked up XP10 Global. Looking forward to seeing what *my* neighborhood (and greater Tibet) looks like.
Windows 8.1 (64)
ASUS 17" Laptop
2.4 GHz I7-4700HQ CPU
8 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M
1 TB HDD