For trading I use Scottrade's streaming Java charts (4 are open) and Scottrade Elite, and like some people here I have slowdowns and freezes when trading gets very fast, such as market opens and the recent collapse of the shipping stocks like DRYS on 7/31/07. Basically I have to cover or minimize the Elite screen quotes to get things back to normal.
Here's the specs...not a new computer, but seems it should be adequate: Athlon XP 3200+/2GB CL2 Patriot memory/IDE Seagate and Maxtor.
Video Card: ATI Radeon X850XT AGP 520/1080 MHz 256MB GDDR3/256-bit, and monitor: Samsung 204B 20" LCD 5ms response.
In addition I have a PCI card running another 19" Samsung monitor, but all my trading goes on in the 20".
Note that the problems occur on two identical XP Pro computers I built...identical specs but different part manufacturers and I remove spyware, defrag, antivirus, disc cleanup, etc. weekly. Java and all drivers are up to date. I have traded with or without that 2nd card with the same results. (I have also used an nVidia FX5900XT with lesser specs than the ATI with the same results as well.)
And here's the biggest note of all. The problem is worse on the 1600x1200 screen than when I switch them and use the 1280x1024 smaller one, which makes sense that the card would have more difficulty with a higher res. If I go 1280x1024 nonnative on the 20" it's also a little better.
I'm leaning towards this 7900GS AGP card:
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814150174
This seems like a step up being that the 7900GS has a max resolution of 2560 x 1600 and most here seem to favor nVidia. But given my computer specs and AGP do you expect this card to fix the problem?
I'm due for a new computer anyway and I'm just being cheap, but if I felt I could spend under $200 to solve this problem I'd rather do that instead. What do you think waste of time or it should help? (BTW great forum. I read 11 pages of this Hardware one last night. I've been trading for 5 years, but didn't really come here until yesterday.)
Here's the specs...not a new computer, but seems it should be adequate: Athlon XP 3200+/2GB CL2 Patriot memory/IDE Seagate and Maxtor.
Video Card: ATI Radeon X850XT AGP 520/1080 MHz 256MB GDDR3/256-bit, and monitor: Samsung 204B 20" LCD 5ms response.
In addition I have a PCI card running another 19" Samsung monitor, but all my trading goes on in the 20".
Note that the problems occur on two identical XP Pro computers I built...identical specs but different part manufacturers and I remove spyware, defrag, antivirus, disc cleanup, etc. weekly. Java and all drivers are up to date. I have traded with or without that 2nd card with the same results. (I have also used an nVidia FX5900XT with lesser specs than the ATI with the same results as well.)
And here's the biggest note of all. The problem is worse on the 1600x1200 screen than when I switch them and use the 1280x1024 smaller one, which makes sense that the card would have more difficulty with a higher res. If I go 1280x1024 nonnative on the 20" it's also a little better.
I'm leaning towards this 7900GS AGP card:
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814150174
This seems like a step up being that the 7900GS has a max resolution of 2560 x 1600 and most here seem to favor nVidia. But given my computer specs and AGP do you expect this card to fix the problem?
I'm due for a new computer anyway and I'm just being cheap, but if I felt I could spend under $200 to solve this problem I'd rather do that instead. What do you think waste of time or it should help? (BTW great forum. I read 11 pages of this Hardware one last night. I've been trading for 5 years, but didn't really come here until yesterday.)