NT8 slow in virtual machine

[claxxical]

WPF performance is a known issue in virtual machines (virtualbox, vmware, parallels, etc) due to GPU rendering. I tried running NT8 in virtualbox with 3D acceleration disabled and although it "works", there are several issues:

• Laggy chart interaction (scrolling, etc)
• Redraws not happening
• Extremely high CPU usage when nothing is going on (Saturday morning, no data, charts just displaying their current state)

Due to my own personal setup, I will pretty much always need to run NT within a VM, as I have done very successfully with NT7 for many years. I'd like to upgrade to NT8 when it's stable. Is there any better known solution for this? Maybe .Net 4.5 addresses this? Hopefully it's not a Microsoft problem...I can't seem to find much help on google about this and I'm surprised there isn't more out there on wpf applications in vm's.

I know I'm not the only person who does this as there are people who lease co-located servers, run NT on other hosted servers, etc.

This is my current environment:
Linux host
Windows 7 guest
NT8 beta 6

[ShaneAU]

Hi claxxical,

Do you have many charts open on your VM (could be in background workspaces also)? The reason I ask, is that I know there is a bug in B6 and earlier which creates chart lagging and many of the symptoms you describe here. This has been fixed in the coming B7 release.

I'm not sure if this is what you are experiencing, to my knowledge this particular bug was directly related to the number of open charts.

I was given a custom build to test the bug fix for the next Beta release, and NT now works fine on my VM (which is Windows Server 2012, 2 virtual cores, 2.5GB ram).

Cheers,
Shane

[claxxical]

Shane,

I wish that were the case, I have the problem with just one chart open. What vm are you using? And I'm assuming you have 3d acceleration off? I assume running Windows server you would.

I have to check but I believe I have one cpu with 1.5 gb ram. I've used this exact setup with nt7 running 24 charts and 3 doms with never the slightest hiccup for years.

Thanks!

[ShaneAU]

Hi claxxical,

Sorry to hear that re the single chart

I currently have a need for an Australian server, and am using www.dedicatedservers.net.au. But in the next 3-6 months I intend to move to a U.S. server and will definitely use www.speedytradingservers.com. The owner, @Sam028 is often on these and other forums helping users. I couldn’t recommend him higher - he is very helpful and his servers have a good reputation (I actually think they may be a NT partner see https://www.ninjatraderbrokerage.com/hosting_services).

Sam may also be a good person to approach with your question, as he will undoubtedly know if there are other users experiencing this issue with NT8 on his servers.

To my knowledge there is no 3d acceleration on the server which I currently use, but I haven’t changed any default settings in this area.

Cheers,
Shane

[NinjaTrader_Brett]

Claxxical,

What speed is that one CPU? From your specs you've given sounds like the VPN that had enough power to run NT7 does not have enough power to run NT8. The CPU is even more important for a VPN since most VPN's do not have graphics cards and the CPU must be utilized to render.

Our minimum PC requirements have gone up from NT7 to NT8.

http://ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt8/en-us/minimum_system_requirements.htm

Although the VPN resources could be a major part of the puzzle here, I'd like to understand more about the 'slow' you are reporting.

Is the 'slowness' apparent in any window? Or is it only charts?

If only charts, can you define the slowness more. Is it a half a second delay when interacting with the chart? If so then likely the CPU rendering issue is to blame and improving the CPU speed would directly help here.

[claxxical]

Brett,

The CPU is a i7-4500 @ 2.40GHz. I actually tried giving the VM 2 cores and absolutely nothing changed.

As for the slowness, it's everything related to charts. I didn't notice much anywhere else. The crosshair lags, scrolling horizontally is very slow, and the charts don't really repaint when they should. For example when you press the little icon in the top right to reset the time scroll to the latest bar, the chart doesn't refresh when you press it. Values in the data box show what they should, but the visible candles do not. Other times, when scrolling, you have to resize the window to see updates, and then even that fails at times. Also, once you stop resizing, the chart goes black again.

Another previously stated concern is the high CPU usage when idle. I had one chart open with no indicators or live data, and Ninjatrader.exe was consuming >30%. This was just to show static candles with no updates or interaction at all. That seems fundamentally wrong.

CPU rendering is definitely an issue when interacting with the chart, but these other symptoms point to something else it seems. The clock speed is high enough to meet the recommended requirements, and I can't see how slightly insufficient ram would cause such high CPU usage at idle.

Any other ideas?

[NinjaTrader_Brett]

Would you mind if I logged into the VM and took a look around? If so contact me @ [email protected] so we could connect.

[strategesis]

Brett,

I'm having similar--but not identical--issues when running NT8 on Windows 10 / Parallels 11 / MacOS X El Capitan / Mac Pro (Early 2008) 8 cores @ 3.2 GHz; 14 GB ram.

I would be happy to let you remote in and check things out.

--Alan (We met at the Connect conference)