thinkorswim laggy on my PC. Time for an upgrade?

[vic38]

How many chart windows did you initially have? And at what maximum number of chart windows does TOS work fine, without lag?

Off the top of my head, probably close to 30 instruments charted simultaneously, plus a heat map, plus a watchlist window with many dozens of instruments, though only a couple dozen at most in one watchlist. Truth be told, some of those charts were just checked in the morning and then not checked again until the close. So I'll have to deal with opening those charts manually when I want to look at them, then close them. And for others, I can just monitor prices in a watchlist, and click on instrument to chart as needed.

I reduced to ~12 instruments charted simultaneously plus the watchlist window. Lag reduced to acceptable levels. I noticed that if I reduce charts further, I can get to no noticeable lag.

Again, the lag is only in TOS, and I was plotting similar # of charts in TWS without any noticeable lag. Though TWS was terrible for chart drawings, so I did those in Ninjatrader. But I do those drawings in TOS, so I am asking TOS to do more than I was asking TWS to do.

 

[HobbyTrading]

Did you actually have to close each of those "too many windows", or was it already sufficient to minimize those windows? From your description I get the impression that TOS internally is reaching a limit with such a number of chart windows, without your computer reaching one of its hardware limits (RAM, CPU, graphics).

 

[vic38]

Did you actually have to close each of those "too many windows", or was it already sufficient to minimize those windows? From your description I get the impression that TOS internally is reaching a limit with such a number of chart windows, without your computer reaching one of its hardware limits (RAM, CPU, graphics).

I didn't try minimizing. I'll give that a try, but I'm guessing the extra chart windows, even when minimized, will slow down TOS.

Yeah, that's certainly the impression I have as well. I'll have to get on the phone with TOS one of these days and see if I can get anymore particulars on their limits besides the generic advice I've been given in chat: "reduce the number of charts".

 

[ZBZB]

More powerful PC may be needed.

 

[destriero]

Recently switched from IB's TWS to TDA's TOS. Immediately noticed some lag in TOS. E.g., pop-up windows are slow to pop-up and slow to go away. When typing in chat, I can easily outrun the characters displaying on screen. No lag in other apps or in TWS.

Running a Dell XPS 8700 spec'ed as follows:

• CPU: 4th gen Core i7; Haswell architecture (launched back in 2013)
  
  
• RAM: 32gb DDR3
  
  
• integrated graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4600
  
  
• discrete graphics: AMD Radeon R9 270 with 2gb video RAM
  
  
• storage: 480gb SSD for Win7 and apps, including TOS
  
  
• displays: 5 x 24" monitors at 1920x1080 resolution. 2 of these are connected to the integrated graphics (via HDMI and DP), 3 are connected to the AMD card (via HDMI, DP and DVI).
  
  
• OS: Win7

When I chatted with TOS support and sent them a log, the rep said it was video resources that were being stressed and suggested I reduce the number of windows/charts. He assumed that I didn't have a discrete video card, but I pointed out that I do, and he reiterated suggestion to reduce windows/charts. I'm running about what I had in IB TWS w/o lag. Could be that TOS is more of a resource hog.

Any suggestions on speeding things up, apart from reducing windows/charts? Any non-hardware tweaks?

I've already increased the min/max RAM to 4GB/12GB. And the memory usage in TOS Help tab is nowhere near the available memory. And I've seen online mentions by people running TOS w/o lag on machines with 16GB of RAM, so that also leads me to conclude that system RAM isn't the limiting factor as I have 32GB with 12GB allocated to TOS.

I would guess that displaying 2D charts and tables shouldn't be too much work for a graphics card, even one that is several years old. I notice a lot of people only use the discrete graphics, even if that means using more than one graphics card. Could it be that my use of both integrated and discrete graphics simultaneously is the issue?

TOS runs great on OSX and linux. Much better than on equivalent PC hardware.

 

[Turveyd]

More powerful PC may be needed.

You only get a few %% bump between I7 Generations, even then such a wide range, you could actually have a slower processor, total nightmare, running a 9year old Core 2 Duo without any issues here, but only MT4 trading.

 

[vic38]

You only get a few %% bump between I7 Generations, even then such a wide range, you could actually have a slower processor, total nightmare, running a 9year old Core 2 Duo without any issues here, but only MT4 trading.

Yeah, when I chatted with TOS, they said they have users running 8gb RAM systems, but they're running very few charts.

 

[Turveyd]

Yeah, when I chatted with TOS, they said they have users running 8gb RAM systems, but they're running very few charts.

Doubt a chart takes 1Mb of ram each, only got 4GB on mine as 32Bit.

Software using more than 1 core ??

 

[vic38]

Doubt a chart takes 1Mb of ram each, only got 4GB on mine as 32Bit.

Software using more than 1 core ??

I believe TOS is NOT multi-threaded, so one core.

 

[schizo]

I can no longer use OnDemand replay. The computer goes into a hyper-frenzied meltdown and memory shoots through the roof. I have a quad-core and even though I've increased the memory to the maximum setting it's still no go.