I'm not sure where to put this so if there is a better place feel free to move it.
I'm curious if anyone is using VMWare to make a virtual pc for their trading pc. I got so much junk installed on my pc (photoshop, music apps, etc.) that it's a pain to reinstall everything to clean things up. I'm considering making a virtual machine for my trading PC but I'm concerned about performance. I run market delta, ninja, & tradestation all on the same PC (quadcore 4 gigs ram).
I'd like a separate pc for trading but then I have a problem with the monitors cause I use dual monitors. that rules out remote desktoping (I think). just brainstorming here. I do non-trading activities when the market is slow so it's nice to have access to everything from one pc.
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Sure, I've used VMWare ESX Server, VMWare Workstation, VirtualBox, etc all for many years on dozens of servers and workstations. They are invaluable tools.
Just remember, anything virtual will have more lag that something not virtual. If milliseconds matter, virtual is not ideal.
There are several options to use multi-monitor. VirtualBox and VMWare both do it, VMWare does it better. Even simple stuff like TeamViewer can do it somewhat. The options start getting reduced if you also want sound.
I am running MultiCharts, Atrader, AmiBroker and NinjaTrader on a VMWare Fusion (Mac).
The first three are running more or less fine. NinjaTrader 7 (not 6.5) has connection issues with ZenFire. Took 20m today to get a stable connect. If all is up then everything is running - more or less - ok. I/O is a problem though. If large I/O (regardless of host or guest) happens then the VM blocks.
That said I am using the VMWare (obviously only for testing purposes...
HTH,
Marc
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I am using microsoft Hyper-V with Windows 7 on a virtual machine. No complaints here - actually contrary. As the VM is running in a data center.... I Have a lot less problems and less lag for automatic order management than I have at home
On an overall basis, which do you consider better if use is just NT charting and backtesting, VMWare or VirtualBox. I have limited experience on VB, none on VMWare.
I am using virtual box and it is working properly with Wxp and NT 6.5 , I have only 2 GB ram physically and for virtual pc I am using 760MB ram and no problem.
I have no visible lagging, it might be because of really fast network connection I use and of course I trade only one lot .
Go for the NEW Mac Mini and turn the whole machine to a Wndows machine using BOOT CAMP. Make sure it is the NEW Mac mini, which has memory capacity of up to 8GB (maximum) and was just launched about two weeks ago. The OLD Mac mini has maximum of 4GB memory.
I run my NT (NT6 and NT7) on my Mac OS X/VMware Fusion environment, which has been OK for about two years now; but I now want to purchase the NEW Mac mini.
Yes VMWave works well an in simple terms provides an independent OS / Registry for each VM you create. It's only as good as the config and this takes time and effort. Main advantage of VM setup is config isolation rather than performance so your RT trade response may suffer (subject to config)
If you are full time trading then my advise is to keep simple and if you can get a dedicated PC for trading that you wont be adding/removing programs often.
This is what i was thinking. i installed VMWare and created a windows 7 VM but it was very slow so i created a windows xp vm. It's still not the same. So I installed Windows 7 64 bit on my PC (host) and I ordered 4 gigs more ram to make a total of 8. I do not run any non-trading programs during trading except for the browser.
So far with windows 7 64 bit everything seems to run faster and better. That may be because my old vista install was 2 years old and had tons of crap on it.
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I run XP Pro in VMWare on a Win7 x64 machine w/ 4gb ram. (Multiple monitors) I've run NT7 on the virtual machine, but never traded live. It's mainly to have a machine for things that may not be compatible with Win7.
You can add that trying to share a folder between VMachines/&or host on the newest versions of VirtBox is impossible: no fix in sight. Damn annoying if you want data integrity between different machines running at same time.
I use VMWare on Win7 so i can run multiple copies of Ninja or other trading tools in parallel.
For example, this allows me to run a big backtesting run that may take hours in the background, while I'm trading in the real machine. Also is a good way to use those multi-core boxes we all have now.
The IB TWS platform is good in this environment, as it accepts TCP connections from the trading platforms in the guest or any other machine on your local LAN... Just have to configure the trusted API hosts.
DataServices can be a problem, as they typically only allow one connection at a time.
I'd love it if I could find a way to share IQFeed like I do for TWS.
my charting environment is running in a VMWare VM and everything runs fine except when switching into the "seamless" unity mode. Often a few charts are disappearing from the screen but are still listed in the taskbar without a caption. …
