Hardware/CPU needed for X-Trader/X-Trader Pro?

Quote from chisel:

P.4 from TT specs:

"TT applications are multithreaded, which means the Windows NT (Win 2000) kernel can load balance TT processes across multiple CPUs improving machine performance. However, this improvement is not linear. Because other non-CPU elements create a threshold, which limits performance improvement, you cannot expect to achieve a doubling of performance. Even though this threshold exists, there is enough of a performance improvement that TT recommends you use faster, multiple CPUs."
More...
What are you trading with this? There are professional guys using Autospreaders linked to spreadsheets and are running various other apps on their machine at my clearing firm, but all they have is 2.8GHz single CPU with 1GB RAM. Just like the computer magazines and other sources of "tech recommendations", you almost always end up shelling out money for stuff you would never use. I think my Dell box cost me around $440 on sale and then I added the RAM myself aftermarket for an additional $80. I always wipe the HDD clean and do a fresh install of WinXP after partitioning the harddrive. I then download and install the latest TIBCO and X-Trader from TT's website. There are no glitches at all as long as I don't use the machine to surf or install and uninstall stuff all the time. On Saturdays, it starts a separate connection on a separate NIC to the internet and downloads the latest updates to the virus program, XP patches and then disables that NIC to maintain integrity on my T-1 line (I'm behind the firewall at my clearing firm). Once scanned and updated, I reconnect the NIC to the T-1 and off to work it goes.

If you are simply running an autospreader or autotrader on TT, you really don't need that fancy a machine. You have to look at what else is running on it and make sure you are not having X-Trader pull more info than you need.
 
Quote from FuturesTrader71:

What are you trading with this? There are professional guys using Autospreaders linked to spreadsheets and are running various other apps on their machine at my clearing firm, but all they have is 2.8GHz single CPU with 1GB RAM. Just like the computer magazines and other sources of "tech recommendations", you almost always end up shelling out money for stuff you would never use. I think my Dell box cost me around $440 on sale and then I added the RAM myself aftermarket for an additional $80. I always wipe the HDD clean and do a fresh install of WinXP after partitioning the harddrive. I then download and install the latest TIBCO and X-Trader from TT's website. There are no glitches at all as long as I don't use the machine to surf or install and uninstall stuff all the time. On Saturdays, it starts a separate connection on a separate NIC to the internet and downloads the latest updates to the virus program, XP patches and then disables that NIC to maintain integrity on my T-1 line (I'm behind the firewall at my clearing firm). Once scanned and updated, I reconnect the NIC to the T-1 and off to work it goes.

If you are simply running an autospreader or autotrader on TT, you really don't need that fancy a machine. You have to look at what else is running on it and make sure you are not having X-Trader pull more info than you need.
More...

What is TIBCO?

I'm running X-Trader 6.x only (not Pro) on a dedicated machine built from scratch...I never surf, email or install/uninstall on this machine unless it pertains to Windows update or X-Trader. I have 3 MD-Trader windows open (ZF, ZN, ZB) along with the usual OrderBook and TradeBook windows. I reduced the rows in the MarketExplorer window to 3 and feed that data into Excel.

After your reco to reduce the rows in the MktExplorer window, I still saw peaks of 100% in the CPU usage earlier today. I'm pretty sure the CPU issue is the feed into Excel, but I'll need to investigate a bit further during the day session.

Thanks FT71.
 
Quote from chisel:

What is TIBCO?

I'm running X-Trader 6.x only (not Pro) on a dedicated machine built from scratch...I never surf, email or install/uninstall on this machine unless it pertains to Windows update or X-Trader. I have 3 MD-Trader windows open (ZF, ZN, ZB) along with the usual OrderBook and TradeBook windows. I reduced the rows in the MarketExplorer window to 3 and feed that data into Excel.

After your reco to reduce the rows in the MktExplorer window, I still saw peaks of 100% in the CPU usage earlier today. I'm pretty sure the CPU issue is the feed into Excel, but I'll need to investigate a bit further during the day session.

Thanks FT71.
More...
When you reduced the rows on Market Explorer to 3, all you did was HIDE those rows. What products do you have open in Market Explorer? Are they the same three you mentioned or do you have more?

TIBCO/Rendezvous is a program by Intel that is used for non-TTM setups for X-Trader. If you X-Trader works as-is, then don't worry about it.

What kind of computations are you doing with Excel? You can try turning off your Market Explorer and Excel and seeing if that helps. If it doesn't, you can reopen them and use them again and look elsewhere.
 
Quote from FuturesTrader71:

When you reduced the rows on Market Explorer to 3, all you did was HIDE those rows. What products do you have open in Market Explorer? Are they the same three you mentioned or do you have more?

TIBCO/Rendezvous is a program by Intel that is used for non-TTM setups for X-Trader. If you X-Trader works as-is, then don't worry about it.

What kind of computations are you doing with Excel? You can try turning off your Market Explorer and Excel and seeing if that helps. If it doesn't, you can reopen them and use them again and look elsewhere.
More...

Yes, the only products in the ME window are the three I mentioned.

In Excel, I have the bid/offer for ZB, ZN, ZF feeding into Excel, so that's 6 links. From there, I have maybe 20 cells that do simple math to calculate the FYT, NOB, and the B-FLY, e.g. That's it. I'll try turning off ME and Excel tomorrow during the more active hours to see if it helps.

Thanks for your help.
 
Quote from FuturesTrader71:

Let me know what happens when those links are severed. I use 4 links for my setup and I don't get much as far as spikes on CPU usage.
More...

This morning just after 9 am CST, I watched the cpu for a while with Excel and the ME window open. Closed Excel and observed then closed the ME window. I could not tell the difference in cpu use when they were open or closed. I had 100% cpu peaks and I'm certain that during a major number that my machine wouldn't keep up. Just after this I ran X-Trader on a nearly identical machine for ~ 10 minutes and observed similar behavior.

A faster and better video card might help, but it seems it's time for a computer upgrade.

HTH
 
Quote from FuturesTrader71:

What are you running? How much RAM? What is the CPU? How old is the machine?
More...

W2K Pro and chip is AMD 1800 XP (1.5 GHz). Half a gig of ram which is way more than enough. Video card is Matrox G200 quad (running 3 monitors) but I think it only has 32 mb of memory. Machine is 3.5 yrs. old.
 
Your CPU seems a bit on the weak side. To find out if you have enough RAM or not, run X-Trader for a while along with all the other programs that you normally run. Pull up the Task Manager. Look at the Performand tab. Under the Physical Memory, look at Available and see how much is left. If this ever dips below 100,000K, then your system may be caching to your harddrive. This will cause a spike in your CPU as well.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top