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Considering leaving Ninjatrader behind. Alternatives for futures trading? Tradovate?


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Considering leaving Ninjatrader behind. Alternatives for futures trading? Tradovate?

  #31 (permalink)
LaissezFaire
Oslo + Norway
 
Posts: 224 since May 2016
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Also, today is another day where Ninjatrader is partially freezing. I have 4 windows open (only one workspace and only one workspace anyway) and 1 of my windows are completely unresponsive.

Thankfully, I'm on holiday and only watching the market today.

In my view, this is completely unacceptable for a premium trading software which costs $$$. If it happened only once a year, fine, but it's happening a bit too often lately...


Ninja

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  #32 (permalink)
 
DanDaMan's Avatar
 DanDaMan 
QC/Canada
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Sierra Chart, NinjaTrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 99 since May 2020
Thanks Given: 327
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No one has mentioned MotiveWave yet?
If you need draw functionality, MotiveWave is very similar to NT.
It is constantly being improved at a faster rate than NT (that's for sure.... NT is missing BASIC BASIC features that every other package on earth has, and they just keep adding your requests to a tracking list).

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  #33 (permalink)
 
trendisyourfriend's Avatar
 trendisyourfriend 
Quebec Canada
Market Wizard
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: AMP/CQG
Trading: ES, NQ, YM
Frequency: Daily
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Posts: 4,527 since Oct 2009
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LaissezFaire View Post
Also, today is another day where Ninjatrader is partially freezing....

I suggest making a clean environment and test this new installation for a while.
  • Go to Help > License Key and copy and paste your License Key into a text document
  • Exit the platform
  • Go to (My) Documents > rename the 'NinjaTrader 8' folder to 'NinjaTrader 8.Prev'.
  • Then re-install from the following link: https://ninjatrader.com/GetStarted

When you reinstall, it will recreate the user folder you had just renamed with only stock files.

Now you can start the platform.

To switch between the two installs; shut down NinjaTrader > rename the new installation to 'NinjaTrader 8.Clean' under (My) Documents > then rename the 'NinjaTrader 8.Prev' to 'NinjaTrader 8'. NinjaTrader looks for the user folder named "NinjaTrader 8" specifically.

When you use Ninjatrader do not open any other applications during your testing phase.

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  #34 (permalink)
LaissezFaire
Oslo + Norway
 
Posts: 224 since May 2016
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Thanks Received: 104


trendisyourfriend View Post
I suggest making a clean environment and test this new installation for a while.
  • Go to Help > License Key and copy and paste your License Key into a text document
  • Exit the platform
  • Go to (My) Documents > rename the 'NinjaTrader 8' folder to 'NinjaTrader 8.Prev'.
  • Then re-install from the following link: https://ninjatrader.com/GetStarted

When you reinstall, it will recreate the user folder you had just renamed with only stock files.

Now you can start the platform.

To switch between the two installs; shut down NinjaTrader > rename the new installation to 'NinjaTrader 8.Clean' under (My) Documents > then rename the 'NinjaTrader 8.Prev' to 'NinjaTrader 8'. NinjaTrader looks for the user folder named "NinjaTrader 8" specifically.

When you use Ninjatrader do not open any other applications during your testing phase.

Hello,

Thank you.

Is this different from a normal "full re-install"?

I did the latter a few times when I first started experiencing this earlier this year as early as February. Each time I had to do a full re-install and that helped initially, but the same thing keeps happening again eventually. Frustrating...

Also, I actually had to do a "forced closedown" using task manager to exit.

I'm not happy...

Best,

LaissezFaire

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  #35 (permalink)
wisp
vancouver, BC
 
Posts: 43 since Sep 2017
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LaissezFaire View Post
If you found them more fitting - why are you still using NT8?

I do like TradingView myself and am using it a bit, but still consider NT king in terms of charts. It's nice to learn other platforms, though.

Sierra Charts seems like a superior platform in most aspects. Particularly in terms of performance and stability. But it looks like it was created in the late 80s and I'm told there's a big learning curve.

Sierra chart does not have a big learning curve. It's very user friendly and the guys at Sierrachart are very responsive and responsible. They may not be dipolomatic, but give new solutions/features quickly. You could also check it out with their free delayed Denali data.

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  #36 (permalink)
 
DanDaMan's Avatar
 DanDaMan 
QC/Canada
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Sierra Chart, NinjaTrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 99 since May 2020
Thanks Given: 327
Thanks Received: 193


wisp View Post
Sierra chart does not have a big learning curve. It's very user friendly and the guys at Sierrachart are very responsive and responsible. They may not be dipolomatic, but give new solutions/features quickly. You could also check it out with their free delayed Denali data.

I concur with this. SierraChart is amazing, and service responsiveness and knowledge is second to none.

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  #37 (permalink)
 
bobwest's Avatar
 bobwest 
Western Florida
Site Moderator
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Sierra Chart
Trading: ES, YM
Frequency: Several times daily
Duration: Minutes
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wisp View Post
Sierra chart does not have a big learning curve. It's very user friendly and the guys at Sierrachart are very responsive and responsible. They may not be dipolomatic, but give new solutions/features quickly. You could also check it out with their free delayed Denali data.


DanDaMan View Post
I concur with this. SierraChart is amazing, and service responsiveness and knowledge is second to none.

I have used Sierra Chart for some time, and I like it a lot. I did find the learning curve to be very steep, however, and it was made much worse by the frankly terrible documentation. What could be said about the platform is basically something I would say about the documentation -- everything is there, but finding it will be a problem.

But once you get familiar with it all, it is very good and I'm glad that I have used it. Their emphasis is technological excellence, and always has been. Customer service is great if they think you have a technically valid point and basically are technical enough yourself. Otherwise, not so much. I have had good experiences with them, but I have seen others who did not (they are sometimes willing to simply insult people who they think are wasting their valuable time.)

-----------------------

I do like NinjaTrader, but I moved away from it a good while ago, during the earlier days of NT 8, which had a lot of problems, and I am not familiar with it today. One thing I have noticed is that some members of the forum have continuing problems with it, and others seem to have none. I don't know why there are these differences, but there are, which is puzzling. I'm not talking about features, which will differ from platform to platform, and where you would expect to see different opinions from different users who have different needs and expectations. But on the basic things, you would think that the general experience would be either universally acceptable (no problems) or terrible (big lags, things not working, etc.) -- but this is not the case at all, as we have seen in this thread. Many users report no issues at all, and some report some pretty serious ones, and I am sure they are all reporting their actual experiences.

So that's a puzzler, basically.

The general advice on how to find a software problem is to start with a bare-bones system and gradually add in features until you find what causes the problem. So with a trading platform, that would mean something like one chart, no indicators, limited data, and then start adding things in, testing as you go. With NT, because of its history with third-party tools causing issues, the last thing to add in would be any indicator or tool that did not come with the package itself. But while this step-by-step process will work (at some point, you'll find something that degrades performance, or the accumulation of added things will), it can be tedious to carry out. But it's a suggestion.

I would also note that NT7 is a perfectly capable platform for many traders, and it is very solid. It has its limitations in terms of the tools that are built in, but there are a lot of indicators and tools that have been written for it, and that are still in the Downloads section (and I assume on the NT website also.) Your license key will work equally well for NT 7 and 8, and the program can be downloaded and installed from the website.

NT7 may not be a satisfactory solution for everyone, but it will work fine for some, so it's another option, as some have said. Whether there is a future in it is another question, but it is certainly as capable as many of the other platforms that are out there.

Bob.

When one door closes, another opens.
-- Cervantes, Don Quixote
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  #38 (permalink)
 
trendisyourfriend's Avatar
 trendisyourfriend 
Quebec Canada
Market Wizard
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: AMP/CQG
Trading: ES, NQ, YM
Frequency: Daily
Duration: Minutes
Posts: 4,527 since Oct 2009
Thanks Given: 4,171
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bobwest View Post
I have used Sierra Chart for some time, and I like it a lot. I did find the learning curve to be very steep, however, and it was made much worse by the frankly terrible documentation. What could be said about the platform is basically something I would say about the documentation -- everything is there, but finding it will be a problem...

Maybe having @gomi sharing his opinion about both platforms would be welcome. I know he has developed his tools for both platforms. I would really like to hear his view on this matter as a developer.

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  #39 (permalink)
 
Silver Dragon's Avatar
 Silver Dragon 
Cincinnati Ohio
Legendary Master Data Manipulator
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: TastyWorks / NT
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bobwest View Post
I do like NinjaTrader, but I moved away from it a good while ago, during the earlier days of NT 8, which had a lot of problems, and I am not familiar with it today. One thing I have noticed is that some members of the forum have continuing problems with it, and others seem to have none. I don't know why there are these differences, but there are, which is puzzling. I'm not talking about features, which will differ from platform to platform, and where you would expect to see different opinions from different users who have different needs and expectations. But on the basic things, you would think that the general experience would be either universally acceptable (no problems) or terrible (big lags, things not working, etc.) -- but this is not the case at all, as we have seen in this thread. Many users report no issues at all, and some report some pretty serious ones, and I am sure they are all reporting their actual experiences.

So that's a puzzler, basically.
Bob.

From my experience building computers and troubleshooting software, inconsistent issues generally come down to incompatible hardware configurations and/or bad memory sticks. The latter is where I always start when these issues arise. OEM memory on a computer is made by the lowest bidder and while they do test it, their tolerances on what is considered bad is much higher than aftermarket memory where the companies only job is to make memory.

Its also possible to have a perfectly functioning computer but have one piece of software which crashes/freezes on a particular operation. This is more common than most people realize especially with memory intensive software. If you have uninstalled/reinstalled and it still crashes with a fresh install, then bad memory could be the issue

Ironically, I had this issue some years back to NT7. It started freezing and crashing for no reason while the rest of my computer was running fine. Uninstalled/reinstalled several times. Some months later Excel started freezing on large files. Ended up replacing the memory and solved the problem for both.

Here is what I suggest for people having issues that no one else is having. If possible, install the software on another computer and test it. If the issue does not occur on the other computer then replace the memory sticks in the main computer. These are relatively cheap. Stick to the name brands. If the memory does not fix the issue then its probably a hardware issue. This could be anything. Best bet unfortunately is to get a new computer.


Robert

nosce te ipsum

You make your own opportunities in life.
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  #40 (permalink)
 gomi 
Paris
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Experience: None
Platform: NinjaTrader
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Hi,

It is not normal that your platform should freeze, the problem might probably be with one of your indicators, did you check removing a couple of them so see if you don't have one that is misbehaving ?

The "problem" with NT is that it is "too easy" to create new indicators, there is an integrated IDE, just copy a couple lines of code, compile with F5 and done. The issue with this is that you can easily miss performance issues if you're not a little seasoned as a developer

As a result, there is a lot of available indicators here and there , and it's cool as a trader, but if something goes wild , people will have a tendency to blame the platform rather than the roguie indicators.. Personaly I never had NT freeze on me

SC is another beast and I find it much more cumbersome to create studies, you need to know C++, compile, not always easy to attach a debugger, etc... So there are less studies available, but there's a bigger chance they are created by an experimented developer, hence generating less performance issues

I kinda like both platforms, NT is easy to work with , looks nice (semoothed graphics), and has a lot of 3rd party indies which I believe makes it success... An issue with it though is the performance of the Tick Replay , specially with high volume instruments like ES where it is not usable with more than a couple days of history. This was slow from the early betas and they never optimized it. I think NT7 with GomRecorder is 10x faster... Drawing with SharpDX is very fast though

SC is more complicated, I do believe there is a learning curve , but it's faster than NT , specially on reading tick data. However those GDI unsmoothed graphics are really ugly, and slow on some operations like using transparency (transparency is no longer accelerated in GDI since Vista). There is an OpenGL mode which is faster but the API has not been releases to 3rd party developers unfortunately
Also it's really activately developped an there are very frequent releases, if yoiu find a bug they'll admit it and correct it in next release

At one point I switched my trading to SC for 2 reasons : it was more open and had lots of connectors, and also they could manage server-side OCO with their servers, which at that time was not possible with NT, so if you had a problem with your computer or internet connexion, you could be left with uncovered open positions in the market.
Concerning the 1st point (SC openness) it's less and less true, SC is going the NT route and want you to use their own feed, the other feeds are shut down or are more expensive to use.
Concerning 2nd point (OCO), not sure where NT stands now on this point :-)

This was my 2 cents !

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