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This post describes a particular problem with Tradestation Pro and asks for
advice on how to deal with it.
If you have no interest in this topic pls skip over.
Recently I repeatedly have had a performance problem when using Tradestation
Pro on my
PII 300 MHz, W98-based PC with 256MB of DRAM (yes, I know, it is obsolete,
and I am planning to replace it shortly).
This occurs especially if the application has been running for a while.
I would have several (6-8) workspaces open, each with 4-9 charts. In a
workspace I may have 1-min, 5-min, daily, and time-and-sales windows open --
all on one stock. Quite often, the 5-min chart would be updating, but the
others would not, each window showing a different last price. When
rebooting the PC, and restarting the application, the problem disappears,
and all windows update reasonably synchronously.
I called Omega tech support, and they told me they don't see this problem,
although on occasion a workspace does get corrupted, and then the solution
is
to delete and re-create it. I do believe Omega on this: I recently talked
to TriKinetic
(they make PCs configured and tested specifically for traders) about buying
a new machine,
and they told me that, in their testing, TS Pro has been stable. I am not
blaming Omega (yet)
and suspect the problem may be due to the limitations of my hardware and
operating system.
Using Vital Agent, I see that the CPU utilization is often at 100%, whereas
memory usage rarely
exceeds 50%.
For this reason, I am planning to replace the PC with a new one that would
have either NT4 or
Windows 2000. My purpose is to run TS Pro in a stable fashion, or if this
fails, TS2000i with Signal
I have several questions in this regard. I am willing to pay premium $ for
premium performance
1. Any opinion on the choice between a PIII 1 GHz with SDRAM memory vs. P4
1.5 GHz with
RDRAM (RAMBUS) memory ( I would get at least 768MB). One can get a PIII with
either SDRAM or
RDRAM. Any performance difference there?
1.1. Pentium 4, at this time, can be had only with RDRAM. In this case,
does a P4 1.5GHz run
noticeably better with 800MH RDRAM vs. 600MHz -- for the purposes of TS Pro?
2. Any difference between NT4 and Windows 2000? TriKinetic supplies their
machines with NT4.
Any difference between the two in terms multi-monitor support?
3. Speaking of multiple monitors, has anyone used Matrox G200MMS card, and
how
has it been? TriKinetic uses Appian Graphics Geronimo Pro. The G200MMS has
several features not present in the Geronimo Pro, such as DVI support for
digital inputs of those
flat-panel displays that have them.
3. Has anyone had any experience with TriKinetic machines, as well as this
company's
service and support? I am trying to choose between their high-end machine a
Dell Precision Workstation.
4. Is anyone running a PIII with 2 CPUs? Is there any incremental
improvement in performance attributable
to the 2nd processor (I doubt it because TS Pro is not a multi-threaded
application, but...)?
Anyone out there running AMD's Athlon?
Any comments are greatly appreciated. To conserve this list's bandwidth, pls
reply privately, and, if there
are any common themes, I will summarize them and post to the list.
Thank you,
Leon Torban
(A long-time lurker, but not a poster until now).
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