Not impressed......

[bali_survivor]

Quote from thenewguy:

Of course it's enough to run it, but will the performance be at the desired level?

I didn't say that would affect the application speed, I simply said that it was a good place to start looking. Obviously you know more about Esignal than me, and what you've pointed to sounds like a very plausible solution. I assumed that there was more on that system than simply esignal, in particular I assumed there was some execution software. Ever try running TT on an 8MB card? Obvioiusly depends on your environment, but the networks I work in tend to have sub 10ms round trips to the exchange (depending on the exchange), and I'm sure not going to blow that hard work with screen refresh issues.

I don't have any links to articles relating to this, but I do wonder when that article you pointed me to was written. 8MB is not a "high-end" video card anymore, and hasn't been for quite a while now. The reason it's hard to find articles relating purely to speed is because high end graphics cards target CAD, DCC, and scientific applications and talk alot about anti aliasing, gamma levels and the like. The only way I could decide for sure was to set up two identical computers with different video cards and watch them side by side. It's was quite eye-opening for me actually, in TT the latency from the video card looks almost identical to network latency, and when the market really moves you'll actually get missing data from one PC. Of course, this is on a set up with dual 24 " flat screens, so the problems are exaggerated.

Again, it's hard to find information on this on the web. In my experience to get a trading environment to the level of what proffessionals need, you have to do some things that push the envelope, and a lot of things that are undocumented, or sometimes are just flat out counter to current thinking. I understand that some people may consider this "overkill", but what is overkill and what gives an advantage is a matter of interpretation, to me. If my traders pay me to give them the best trading environment possible and they can see the difference so I find it difficult to call it "overkill".

A retail trader trading from home probably has numerous issues to deal with before they get to this problem, however. So, given that they probably haven't dealt with them prior to this, sure 8MB is probably enough to run a single monitor and a charting program. I however, would not do that, and I still would not run three monitors off of a 128MB card.

Again, this is just my opinion, and it's possible we operate in two very different environments.

Thanks,

- The New Guy

when I started in 1985 I worked on the second largest installation in Europe (the largest being in Switzerland: the institute for nuclear research)

The installation we had ran over 15000 terminals and the combined computing power was less than what we have today in our laptops....talking about overkill or talking about bad tuning and bad software?

 

[thenewguy]

Quote from Stealth Trader:

First, your twisting the facts to justify your position is indeed juvenile, as the original poster specifically stated that he is using the 8MB card on ONE monitor, not four as you now claim.

Second, your continued persistence that it could be the video card demonstrates you are indeed uninformed.

Third, it's never "ridiculous" to expose the truth, as your research on video cards is obviously flawed. Furthermore, understand the difference between a chart loading/building slow and the capability of graphics refreshing rate. The symptoms described were of the former.

Sorry to be so harsh, but when people inquire about an issue, your leading them down an asinine path to nowhere is not conducive to solving their problem and only serves to frustrate them. But if you wish to "prove rather easily" that I'm wrong, I'm all ears!

Have a nice day!

st

Look, I'm not trying to degrade this(what is my attempt at a discussion) into yet another ET pissing match. I didn't say the card was running 4 monitors, I said it was a 4 monitor system. Please read what I wrote a little more carefully.

I don't see how suggesting that the video card COULD be the problem, even after admitting that you have pointed to something that is much more likely to be the problem is offensive to you.

It's not ridiculous to "expose the truth" but that's not what I'm taking issue to. I think if you would read my comments with an open mind and drop attitude for a moment you would realize that I'm just saying that there are other ways to think about this. Esignal has a known problem, you pointed to it, you get the girl scout cookies, yippee. I was just trying to explain my point of view and where it comes from. You insulted me when attacked my knowledge of these issues and I was trying in a nice way to explain that I do know a bit about this.

Obviously I'm looking for a discussion and you're looking for an argument, so I am not going to participate in this conversation any longer. I sincerely hope that you recover quickly from whatever it is that I did to piss you off.

One more remark before I go. I didn't mean I could prove to you that upgrading the video card remains effective (especially now that I know you aren't interested in hearing other points of view), but I simply meant to myself and to the people who foot the bill for this type of expense. It was one of our easier decisions when building this trading environement.

Good luck to you in all your endeavors,

- The New Guy

 

[thenewguy]

Quote from bali_survivor:

when I started in 1985 I worked on the second largest installation in Europe (the largest being in Switzerland: the institute for nuclear research)

The installation we had ran over 15000 terminals and the combined computing power was less than what we have today in our laptops....talking about overkill or talking about bad tuning and bad software?

I honestly don't get your point? Are you simply insulting my credentials without actually knowing them or is there something I'm missing here?

- The New Guy

 

[winter]

Quote from thenewguy:

Of course it's enough to run it, but will the performance be at the desired level?

TNG, as far as I know there would be zero difference between having a video card running a 2D application with 8MB vs the same card with 64MB (or any higher value). As long as the video card has sufficient memory for the desired screen resolution I don't understand how additional memory would provide any additional benefits (again, in the context of this discussion, obviously extra memory is very beneficial for other applications, specifically 3D graphics, as you mentioned).

I'm not a graphics expert nor an eSignal expert however it is my understanding that when used for 2D images, the graphics card memory is used as a frame buffer to hold the image and that's all. Having additional memory on the card would not have any affect and in fact would not be utilized.

Perhaps things have changed since I did any graphics programming or DirectX has ways of utilizing extra video card memory to improve speed even in simple 2D applications; Those are the type of things I am looking for references to.

 

[thenewguy]

Quote from bali_survivor:

thenewguy does not know what it is to run a classroom of 50 students learning SCO Unix and 40+ students learning Oracle forms on a 286 DX25 with two 300 Mb SCSI HD and 24 Mb of RAM.

We were aghast when we got NT 3.51 and were recommended 32MB of RAM to run it, those were the days. OS2 in comparison was flying with 8Mb of RAM.

There is a lot that can be done to improve the performance of XP, a place to start can be www.tweakhound.com

I don't know why people feel the need to point out what CAN be done. Sure, you could run linux on a computer with 8Mb of RAM and trade off of it if you want. But why would you want to?

Despite the fact that you all seem to think I'm 12, I have been around for a while. In IT the only way I have found to trust solutions implicity is to test them yourself. I recently tested the difference in high-end video cards and thought that the results from there might be useful here. If you guys don't find this information useful then no big deal. But I really don't see how implying that I'm young, inexperienced or unknowledgable is getting anybody anywhere.

Thanks,

- The New Guy

 

[thenewguy]

Quote from winter:

TNG, as far as I know there would be zero difference between having a video card running a 2D application with 8MB vs the same card with 64MB (or any higher value). As long as the video card has sufficient memory for the desired screen resolution I don't understand how additional memory would provide any additional benefits (again, in the context of this discussion, obviously extra memory is very beneficial for other applications, specifically 3D graphics, as you mentioned).

I'm not a graphics expert nor an eSignal expert however it is my understanding that when used for 2D images, the graphics card memory is used as a frame buffer to hold the image and that's all. Having additional memory on the card would not have any affect and in fact would not be utilized.

Perhaps things have changed since I did any graphics programming or DirectX has ways of utilizing extra video card memory to improve speed even in simple 2D applications; Those are the type of things I am looking for references to.

I don't have a good answer for you. I assume there are spikes in the memory usage that cause some sort of buffering problem. I don't spend too much time figuring out why on these issues. All I know is there was a noticable difference between 128MB nvidia cards and the 512MB ones I tested. Its a difference that most of the traders I support would report as "slowness", which is something I'm constantly battling against. I'll tell you this though, even just opening/closing windows you can notice a difference (imho) in the crispness and responsiveness of the computer.

Furthermore, how much is a 256MB card these days? Why not just get one and not have to worry about it anymore....

- The New Guy

 

[thenewguy]

Quote from thenewguy:

I don't have a good answer for you. I assume there are spikes in the memory usage that cause some sort of buffering problem. I don't spend too much time figuring out why on these issues. All I know is there was a noticable difference between 128MB nvidia cards and the 512MB ones I tested. Its a difference that most of the traders I support would report as "slowness", which is something I'm constantly battling against. I'll tell you this though, even just opening/closing windows you can notice a difference (imho) in the crispness and responsiveness of the computer.

Furthermore, how much is a 256MB card these days? Why not just get one and not have to worry about it anymore....

- The New Guy

I really don't think video cards are tested in way that is useful for trading. I assume it's because windows 2D graphics is considered a "dead issue", and it's all about 3D graphics these days. Also, what type of user other than a trader is going to notice a 100ms delay twice a day? When that delay comes at a fed release (which inevitably it does) they are going to notice, but I know of no other user that is going to notice that. 3D rendering is very memory intensive, but usually a constant memory burn, which is much more easily measured and quantified. If your card operates at %20 memory usage %99 of the time, that's considered perfect for most users. For traders, it's how it performs during that %1 slowdown period that really makes the difference.

Stealth trader,

To clarify what you interpreted as me twisting facts around to suite my needs, the installation as I understand it is one monitor on an 8MB card, and three monitors on a 128MB card. If I were installing a new set up for one of our traders at our office I would absolutely go with two monitors on a 256MB card and another two on a seperate 256MB card. It has been my experience that that set up will have a performance advantage over the current set up.

Thanks,

- The New Guy

 

[BKuerbs]

Quote from lilduckling:

for what its worth ... i am using alot of studies... add on studies. Some windows have as much as 4 custom studies going on at once. On pages that i dont have the studies, its much faster.... still.... cant believe my set-up is not fast enought to handle custom studies.

If I remember correctly then eSignal has an EFS-Performance monitor. Maybe you could use it to find out which EFS-study (if any) is using up most of CPU-time.

Regards

Bernd Kuerbs

 

[Stealth Trader]

Quote from thenewguy:

I don't have a good answer for you. I assume there are spikes in the memory usage that cause some sort of buffering problem. I don't spend too much time figuring out why on these issues. All I know is there was a noticable difference between 128MB nvidia cards and the 512MB ones I tested. Its a difference that most of the traders I support would report as "slowness", which is something I'm constantly battling against. I'll tell you this though, even just opening/closing windows you can notice a difference (imho) in the crispness and responsiveness of the computer.

Furthermore, how much is a 256MB card these days? Why not just get one and not have to worry about it anymore....

- The New Guy

IOW, all the engineers and techs who build and test video cards are wrong and you're right for no other reason than you can "see a difference." Thanks for clearing that up!!! And a special thanks for telling us numerous times how smart and experienced you are! I stand humbled before you.


Of course, there are those who also believe that the earth is flat too, even though all evidence proves otherwise. But hey, who am I to judge?

Now that you have educated us on how talented you are, how about explaining what you recent drivel has to do with curing the original posters question as posed.

In summary, me thinks your company is not getting their monies worth, that is, unless you are there for no other reason than the entertainment value.



I'm not sure why, but the following came to mind when I read your posts today:

--------------

Med School

First-year students at Med School were receiving their first Anatomy class with a real dead human body. They all gathered around the surgery table with the body covered with a white sheet. The professor started the class by telling them: "In medicine, it Is necessary to have 2 important qualities as a doctor. The first is That you not be disgusted by anything involving the human body." For an example, the Professor pulled back the sheet, stuck his finger in the butt of the corpse, withdrew it and stuck his finger in his mouth." Go ahead and do the same thing," he told his students. The students freaked out, hesitated for several minutes, but eventually took turns sticking a finger in the butt of the dead body and sucking on it. When everyone had finished, the Professor looked at them and told them, "The second most important quality is observation. I stuck in my Middle finger and sucked on my Index finger. Now learn to pay attention."


-------------------

st

 

[dcraig]

Quote from lilduckling:

Am really not very happy on how slow it takes for me to flip through eSignal pages.... or even when i'm working in the same page.... it's very very slow. Data seems to come in in real time... but everything else seems too slow. Example.... today i moved a window and it couldn't keep up with the mouse icon. I also wanted to set an alert... and had to wait like 3 seconds for alarm window to pop up.

My question is....... is this because i have too many windows open at one time??... or is it eSignal thats slow.

My page set-up: 21 windowns open displaying various charts and quotes. Its spread across 4 monitors.

My Hardware: 1 Matrox Parhelie 128MB controlling 3 monitors, and 1 Matrox G200 8MB controlling the 4th monitor. My comp is
3.01 GHz with 1.5 GB ram.

I have always beleived my set up was fast enough.... but could 21 open windows be too much for my system???

I doubt if it the main problem, but the G200 is a very old card now. I've found that the G200 MMS Quad is dramatically slower on a Linux system than the dual head Nvidia NVS 280 which is a newer card intended for this type of 2D application. I've seen a review that rated the NVS 280 as substantially quicker than a G550 which is much newer than a G200. Windows milage may vary, but the G200 is old.