Kingsley 

@sam028, May I know is Window 7 Professional 64-bit able to run 2 RDP at the same time? Regards, Kingsley

I always have at least a dozen of RDP sessions open, using mremoteng which is a very nice tool when you have more than few connections, so 2 or more is possible.

Superdoug3 

Not sure exactly what U mean, but as I don't have Enterprise or Ultimate, is there another Remote Desktop application that would be suitable AND be compatible with Win7 HP AND make my experience with 2 monitors satisfying ??

I don't have a Premium version so I can't test and be 100% sure, but using 2X or mremoteng it should work. But you'll have some borders, see my screenshot with mreromteng and 2 monitors.
Send me a PM if you want to try this on one of my VPS, trials are free.

artemiso 

You can set up a SSH server on Windows ( Geek to Live: Set up a personal, home SSH server), which can handle multiple sessions and windows easily. I haven't tried this lately though, Cygwin could still be susceptible to the Shellshock buffer overrun vulnerability if they haven't patched it.

For command line that's fine, but to display charts, impossible . You didn't read carefully the question, IMVHO.

sam028 

I don't have a Premium version so I can't test and be 100% sure, but using 2X or mremoteng it should work. But you'll have some borders, see my screenshot with mreromteng and 2 monitors.

You seem to be very knowledgeable. Let me explain my problem and 3 possible solutions
I am with Transact and my charts on Sierra Chart freeze up and I have to disconnect and reconnect. This can happen frequently one day and not again for a week. Transact tech says this is because they require a minimum connection speed of 10 Mbps and being rural I have a maximum DSL of 6 Mbps.
Solutions
1. put up with the freezes. I have an indicator showing remaining ticks for the bar to complete painting. It counts down from 500 to 0. If the counter is stuck for a minute or more I assume I am frozen, and I disconnect and reconnect.
2. go with Speedy. According to Transact Tech this may not solve my problem because I still have 6 Mbps from Speedy to my home computer, so I may still see screen freezes despite VPS for trading
3. go with a dedicated data feed (IQfeed) this may just complicate matters. I will be able to see updated charts without freezing but I still need Transact feed for trade submissions. I may submit a STOP order and would not know Transact was disconnected until I saw that my STOP was not filled upon touching of price. Since I have never used 2 data feeds (Transact & IQfeed), I am not sure what it would look like when running Sierra Charts.
4. I live in B.C. Canada and not a lot of choice for discount futures brokers. I could go with IB and have IQfeed for a data feed as the tick data from IB is poor. This may be the best solution.

I know I have a 1 week free trial of Speedy, but I am not ready to commit after the trial ends
your Comments on #2 and #3

sam028 

For command line that's fine, but to display charts, impossible . You didn't read carefully the question, IMVHO.

Guilty as charged. Why would you need charts if you're connecting to a hosted server though?

Superdoug3 

You seem to be very knowledgeable. Let me explain my problem and 3 possible solutions I am with Transact and my charts on Sierra Chart freeze up and I have to disconnect and reconnect. This can happen frequently one day and not again for a week. Transact tech says this is because they require a minimum connection speed of 10 Mbps and being rural I have a maximum DSL of 6 Mbps. Solutions 1. put up with the freezes. I have an indicator showing remaining ticks for the bar to complete painting. It counts down from 500 to 0. If the counter is stuck for a minute or more I assume I am frozen, and I disconnect and reconnect. 2. go with Speedy. According to Transact Tech this may not solve my problem because I still have 6 Mbps from Speedy to my home computer, so I may still see screen freezes despite VPS for trading 3. go with a dedicated data feed (IQfeed) this may just complicate matters. I will be able to see updated charts without freezing but I still need Transact feed for trade submissions. I may submit a STOP order and would not know Transact was disconnected until I saw that my STOP was not filled upon touching of price. Since I have never used 2 data feeds (Transact & IQfeed), I am not sure what it would look like when running Sierra Charts. 4. I live in B.C. Canada and not a lot of choice for discount futures brokers. I could go with IB and have IQfeed for a data feed as the tick data from IB is poor. This may be the best solution. I know I have a 1 week free trial of Speedy, but I am not ready to commit after the trial ends your Comments on #2 and #3

First thing, 6 mb/s is more than enough to get price data. I have a client using IB and IQFeed, getting realtime quotes for 500 stocks on IQFeed: his server is using between 1 mb/s and 3 mb/s during business hours. But that's for 500 instruments!
So with 6 mb/s you're good.
If you have disconnections it's maybe because your network is not reliable, it's not directly linked with the speed itself.

2. I do not have detailled statistics here but the RDP protocol is optimized for speed and will never ask for more than 1mb/s.

3. If your Internet connection is not reliable using another data feed won't help.

sam028 

First thing, 6 mb/s is more than enough to get price data If you have disconnections it's maybe because your network is not reliable, it's not directly linked with the speed itself. 3. If your Internet connection is not reliable using another data feed won't help.

I appreciate your feed back. Your analysis of 6 Mbps being enough agrees with everyone else (except Transact Tech)
BUT
I must be misunderstanding your response. When I get these freezes, my internet connection to other services is fine (e-mail, Yahoo). When I suspect a screen freeze (my Remaining Ticks indicator is stopped) my action is to use the buttons on Sierra Chart to Disconnect the data feed and Reconnect the data feed from Transact. Why this fixes my freeze, I do not know, but it does. My DSL connection to my ISP has been pretty reliable over a very long time. I am hardwired with CAT5 and I don't use the DSL for anything else during trading times 6:30 - 8:30 am PST. Opps not quite true, I sometimes look at Facebook or e-mail while waiting on Price to move. My DSL connection is not dropping and needing a reboot of the modem hardly ever. Maybe you mean there is some transmission errors that don't drop my DSL connection but cause Sierra Chart to hiccup and freeze. I am using an ISP supplied modem and a Dlink router. I have had the Dlink for over 12 years and the modem is a Thompson Speedtouch which is supplied by my ISP because that is what they want me to use. My ISP is Telus which is one of the big 3 Telephone companies in Canada. I would like to try cable but that is unlikely to ever be available in my area. Satellite is available but that is slower (5 Mbps) and more unreliable in bad weather.

I have a trading buddy in LA using Transact & Sierra Chart for CL, DAX etc and his connection is 25 Mbps and he never gets a freeze. He is not technical but he can run Speettest and he knows what a screen freeze is. This helps confirm Transact Tech's claim that I need greater than 10 Mbps but not solid evidence.

I don't pretend to know more than you do, I am just confused. I realize that you are giving of your valuable time and I don't appear to be listening. I would expect the support team at Transact to know what they are talking about just like I would expect you to know VPS. The confusing part is that everybody else says 6 Mbps is more than adequate.

I am running ema21 and no other indicators. I have closed all feeds except for NQ in order to minimize my data stream. I am not getting $TRIN or any of these other market indicators. I had a high volume day (for NQ) and I was fine, a few days ago, the Volume was Medium for NQ and I had 3 freezes in 70 minutes. My broker assures me that this is normal and that I should just live with it.

I am looking at the 4 alternatives I mentioned earlier I was very interested in VPS but Transact Tech warned me that I may still have 6 Mbps issue on the transmission from VPS to my home and I do have the issue of needing to Upgrade to WIN Enterprise or WIN Ultimate for multi-monitor use. I realize a 1 week trial of Speedy may help. My screen freezes used to be daily, but this has improved a lot and 1 week may not tell me anything. For the moment feedback from technical experts is the most helpful.


I realize you have already given your feedback and that you may not have anything else to add - in which case thank-you again for your time and help.

I have the same problem and solved it by changing my PC to to better one with bigger not build in video card 1gig ,and freeze disappeared.Check your CPU usage and see how big is it

isold 

I have the same problem and solved it by changing my PC to to better one with bigger not build in video card 1gig ,and freeze disappeared.Check your CPU usage and see how big is it

I appreciate your response. I have a 1 GB gaming video card. More than I could ever need. My CPU is usually 1 or 2% useage. My screen freezes only occur with when I am running trading charts. I guess that is not quite true, sometimes a video may lock up but that is probably related to some plugin.

I have decided to track how often this occurs. It used to occur several times a day, but, in the past 3 months, occurs much less often, so I may be able to live with it. It is nice to have a perfect system, but sometimes you have to live with good enough.

My first post! Thanks to everyone at futures.io (formerly BMT), I have not had a useful thought to contribute before now but I shall get more involved.

Very happy with Sam's service and my VM runs well with no detectable CPU crowding etc. after 3 weeks use. I wanted to give it a fair run before posting a review to be fair.

Approachable and available at weird hours (I suspect Sam sleeps on Sunday?), customer service is not in question.

My recent pre-trader history involves 20+ years of IT admin and consulting and I appreciate the clean setup with just the essential security applied.

~1ms ping to CQG and limits fill more often as I'd hoped for my bot. No complaints at all.

This bit below is not relevant to bot/algo systems but if your discretionary and abroad:

I'm only writing this as I found a solution (below) that helped me. It won't be a problem for very many people in practice anyway. The bandwidth to the internet is spectacular from my hosted VM (500+ Mb up/down to a local Chicago server) but be aware that if in Ireland/UK (elsewhere? as was mentioned before by others) you might get only 4-7Mb download but 50+ up in my case.. however thats not the important side. This can make the Remote Desktop charts slow to update regardless of your home ISPs blazing fast speed. This is not Sam's fault, just the often asyncronous performance caused at the ISP/Backbone level and its a suck-and-see. If you have a business contract your ISP may change the preferred route etc, if domestic you could try but good luck!

Performance from Medellin Colombia however is excellent and its fast (15+ Mb/s downlink in Paris) so just see how it goes, you may have no issue anyway. Its simply a complex thing and varies on ISP & Location.

A possible solution: I got a few extra MBs download speed by routing through a commercial VPN proxy app from my main home in the west of Ireland appearing first in Washington (faster than using that company's Chicago based server). This avoided my ISP's preferred route via NYC which is horribly bottlenecked from my location. I had to try a few US based proxy servers from the VPN service's list (most were worse) but Washington did the trick.

Ping time remained as before ~127 Ms from home but improved from ~5Mbs to stable 8-9 which is plenty. Obviously tweaking colour depth and chart layout helps also. It may not work well and it may be slower but if stuck, worth a try.

I give SpeedyTradingServers five stars.

Thanks @Rory, it's always nice to have (unsollicited) feedback!

IT guys will found this funny (from a VPS of an old client, who don't seems to like Windows updates and regular reboots ).
edit: to clarify Windows and his VPS have been up & running for 559 days. Unfortunately I will migrate this VPS to another faster physical server, so the story will end soon.