Why are IB's chart's so slow?

[walterjennings]

id imagine IB throttles their backfill bandwidth based on total usage to minimize the average bandwidth requirements => minimizing network costs.

 

[MajorUrsa]

Quote from stock777:

Hard to imagine the 'slowness' of the backfill has anything to do with Java at all.

Has anyone done a test using the api, to see how fast the data actually gets delivered after a request?

I've noticed the futures backfilling seems faster , but I have no hard proof at this time.

Yes, you're right, I didn't read the OP's quesion properly and apologize.
(Also again: I think JVM is a great platform with lots of potential still unused.)

A historical backfill in Quotetracker will also take a while, somewhere between 10 and 60 seconds. A intraday backfill, so with intraday data for the last 5 days, is very fast, at most 5 seconds but often only 1.

Ursa..

 

[whitster]

a historical backfill also generally uses a completely different datafeed than IB

 

[ryancohen]

is the basic IB data feed (not backfill) as fast as E-signal or DTN iq, etc?

 

[cscott]

Is QT the least expensive way to go for charts on Windows? Anyone got any charting software recommendations for linux that doesn't just utilize yahoo's data for backfilling?

 

[MajorUrsa]

Quote from whitster:

a historical backfill also generally uses a completely different datafeed than IB

That is very well possible with QT but not in my setup; I use IB only, for everything. THe timmings I refer to come from the IB data as requested by QT.

For those not familiar: there is a difference between backfill and historical backfill. The former is an update of missing quotes for the current day and 5 days back. I think it is a full T&S refill, without B/A quotes.
A historical backfill gives OHLC's per day for the past year-to-date.

Ursa..

 

[$$$lover]

By the way is there a way to get rid of the grid (lines) on the charts that IB provides (forex/futures)...thanks!

 

[doli]

Couple questions:

1. Is IB's data tick-by-tick?

2. Does IB make the source code of their charting software available? (It is derived from jfreechart, if I remember correctly, which is "open" source.)

 

[DAV]

Yes. Chart > Configure > Chat Colors > Make the gridlines the same color as your background.

Quote from $$$lover:

By the way is there a way to get rid of the grid (lines) on the charts that IB provides (forex/futures)...thanks!

 

[MajorUrsa]

Quote from doli:

Couple questions:

1. Is IB's data tick-by-tick?

2. Does IB make the source code of their charting software available? (It is derived from jfreechart, if I remember correctly, which is "open" source.)

1. Not really. Afaik they send consolidated 'ticks-frames' in a constant rate, with volume. The constant rate is somewhere between 3-5 times per second, I forget. One of these frames can contain data about 1 or more actual ticks. The advantage is that during market panics they can maintain this rate and thus keep you informed, whilest other providers, so I heard, cannot keep up with the sudden increase in ticks for many stocks for all their users at the same time. This can give serious delays at a time when you just don't need it.
The disadvantage is of course that you don't see the actual tick when i happens and there is an inherent delay of 0.2 to 0.4 seconds. For most that is not relevant, but for some it is.

2. Not that I know of.

Ursa..