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Best Hardware for Ninjatrader 7


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Best Hardware for Ninjatrader 7

  #1 (permalink)
 warcious 
Brisbane + Australia
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: NinjaTrader
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Hello everybody,

I would like to ask what type of processors are best with ram for a smooth Ninjatrader 7 experience.
As I use many charts on the screen together with indicators that makes a lot of measurements, I experience CPU over-utilisation when I swap instruments from my Market Analyzer windows that is linked to 4 other charts with indicators.
I know the debugging mode is enabled from my indicators which could be a limiting factor, but what about the CPU and mem. What is the absolute best hardware for NT7 (not NT8) and if I cant afford it, what type of processor and ram would you guys recommend?

I will be running a clean installation for NT7 probably using Windows 7 on a Dell Optiplex 9010:
CPU: i7 3770 (3.4 GHz) - Benchmark test: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-3770+%40+3.40GHz
16 GB ram
120 SSD drives

Also, if you think it would run better on Windows 10 OS then Windows 7, let me know.
It will be entirely used only for trading using Ninjatrader 7.

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  #2 (permalink)
 
rleplae's Avatar
 rleplae 
Gits (Hooglede) Belgium
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You may want a few attention points :
  • a fast HardDisk, recent motherboards support the M.2 SSD's, their throughput is much faster than a traditional SATA SSD
  • while 16GB is fine, 32GB will give you a little extra power and keep you out of swapping situations longer
  • many people use WIFI, it's much faster to hard wire your machine to the router

Will you be running anything else than NT ?

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  #3 (permalink)
 warcious 
Brisbane + Australia
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: CQG, NinjaTrader Brokerage
Trading: NQ, FDAX
Posts: 104 since Oct 2016
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I am not sure but I do not think that I have a M.2 SSD.
I may invest in 32GB ram instead, the swapping situations are very annoying as I often want to follow more then 1 instrument and I have my indicator setup on 4 charts for 1 instrument only, and need to swap between instruments to make a trade on the charttrader.
I neve ruse wifi for trading, only ethernet connected directly to my PC.

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  #4 (permalink)
 
rleplae's Avatar
 rleplae 
Gits (Hooglede) Belgium
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warcious View Post
I am not sure but I do not think that I have a M.2 SSD.
I may invest in 32GB ram instead, the swapping situations are very annoying as I often want to follow more then 1 instrument and I have my indicator setup on 4 charts for 1 instrument only, and need to swap between instruments to make a trade on the charttrader.
I neve ruse wifi for trading, only ethernet connected directly to my PC.

With 'swapping' i was referring to the mechanism, when all active programs
are using more memory than what is physical in the machine. At that moment
part of not used memory is 'swapped' to disk and needed memory is loaded
that dramatically reduces performance and you want to avoid this situation

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  #5 (permalink)
 warcious 
Brisbane + Australia
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: CQG, NinjaTrader Brokerage
Trading: NQ, FDAX
Posts: 104 since Oct 2016
Thanks Given: 35
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rleplae View Post
With 'swapping' i was referring to the mechanism, when all active programs
are using more memory than what is physical in the machine. At that moment
part of not used memory is 'swapped' to disk and needed memory is loaded
that dramatically reduces performance and you want to avoid this situation

Ok, you mean this virtualisation memory that Windows does. I would have to look it up, well I am only on 8GB at the moment, so I think 16GB will do much better already. How do I know that my memory is being swapped, can I see it in the task manager in Windows?

My Physical Memory (MB) Total 8125, Cached 848, Available 3626, Free 2811
My Kernel Memory (MB) says Paged 317, Nonpaged 78.

When I am "changing instrument" it is mostly the CPU utilisation that spikes up.

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  #6 (permalink)
 
rleplae's Avatar
 rleplae 
Gits (Hooglede) Belgium
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This is my smallest machine, it runs smoothly 18 instruments, i use the workspace indicator to switch between instruments, it's instantaneously.

I have 4 screens attached to this machine and have 2 MSI GTX 960 cards.

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  #7 (permalink)
 warcious 
Brisbane + Australia
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: CQG, NinjaTrader Brokerage
Trading: NQ, FDAX
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rleplae View Post
This is my smallest machine, it runs smoothly 18 instruments, i use the workspace indicator to switch between instruments, it's instantaneously.

I have 4 screens attached to this machine and have 2 MSI GTX 960 cards.

Interesting, well I have 3 screens using 2 x NVIDIA Quadro FX 1700M.
Do you think that the graphics cards really need to be so powerful for simple graphics that NT7 needs?

I also see you have some customized indicators using the windows forms buttons, I worked on something similar before, took 2 years to develop. What is AE?

My issue is when I change instruments using Market Analyzer, I have 3 charts open with 3 different indicators, all linked to the Market Analyzer, and when I change instruments, the whole system stops sometimes up to 30 seconds.

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  #8 (permalink)
 warcious 
Brisbane + Australia
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: CQG, NinjaTrader Brokerage
Trading: NQ, FDAX
Posts: 104 since Oct 2016
Thanks Given: 35
Thanks Received: 21


rleplae View Post
You may want a few attention points :
Will you be running anything else than NT ?

No, I will install Windows 10 and run a clean install of NT7 only, nothing else that may interrupt the process.
I will probably dedicate 2 screens for that.

Btw, I was thinking about getting more screens, but I can only fit 3 x 25 inch screens on my desk.
Have you found any good multiple screen mounts?

I might even start a thread where people can present their screen setups, and inspire some creativity.
Thanks!

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  #9 (permalink)
 
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 xiaosi 
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
 
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warcious View Post
No, I will install Windows 10 and run a clean install of NT7 only, nothing else that may interrupt the process.
I will probably dedicate 2 screens for that.

Btw, I was thinking about getting more screens, but I can only fit 3 x 25 inch screens on my desk.
Have you found any good multiple screen mounts?

I might even start a thread where people can present their screen setups, and inspire some creativity.
Thanks!

There is already a thread here....

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  #10 (permalink)
 
ratfink's Avatar
 ratfink 
Birmingham UK
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warcious View Post
Interesting, well I have 3 screens using 2 x NVIDIA Quadro FX 1700M.
Do you think that the graphics cards really need to be so powerful for simple graphics that NT7 needs?

I also see you have some customized indicators using the windows forms buttons, I worked on something similar before, took 2 years to develop. What is AE?

My issue is when I change instruments using Market Analyzer, I have 3 charts open with 3 different indicators, all linked to the Market Analyzer, and when I change instruments, the whole system stops sometimes up to 30 seconds.

Your question is correct, you need hardly any graphics power for NT7's 2D drawing. Many people misunderstand this.

Swapping/paging memory is not really an issue either, unless you are running in 64 bit mode and making great use of the extended workspace addressing (e.g maybe for strategy backtesting, or having massive amounts of tick data loaded), in which case NT7 will show up with a vast active memory size in the Task Manager. I doubt you will see that.

In my case I run 8 workspaces with 30+ charts 40+ instruments and NT7 never uses more than 400k and c 3-9% cpu on a i3 laptop with inbuilt Intel graphics. Sure, it runs better on my main i7 box with ATI and NVIDIA cards and more ram, but not by much.

The reasons for your 30s delays are simply NT reloading all data on the instrument switching. All that can easily be avoided by using different workspaces for your instruments and switching between them. There are other ways to do it as well. Always think if you really need all the instrument data that you have loaded.

Cheers

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Last Updated on July 3, 2017


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