Building Ninja Trader PC

[mainstream]

Has anyone figured out how to put the appropriate hardware together to maximise the NINJA app?

I'm thinking a P4 3.6 extreme with 4 gigs of ddr2533 with a raptor?

I'm lagging in my backtesting and was hoping to just put a couple dollars into a machine optimized for the app.

Also, does anyone know if the new version of the APP with utilize multi core processors?

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

NinjaTrader 7 will support multi core processors.

Unfortunately, we do not have specific recommended hardware settings to maximize the performance of NinjaTrader.

The general rule applies; the faster the machine, the smoother NinjaTrader will run.

[auspiv]

I'm thinking a P4 3.6 extreme with 4 gigs of ddr2533 with a raptor?

why would you use the outdated p4 when you could buy a new c2d?

[mainstream]

Because the p4 3.6 Extreme is the fastest single core processor. Four gigs is the most XP pro recognizes, and a raptor is a 10k drive.

Ninja only uses one of the two in the duo...

But since the new version will utilize multi-core then might as well trade different signals until then.

[auspiv]

Because the p4 3.6 Extreme is the fastest single core processor. Four gigs is the most XP pro recognizes

it is the fastest by clock speed, but that doesn't necessarily mean fastest overall. it could be, but thats research i haven't done.

also, you may want to look up xp "seeing" only 3.2 gigs or so of ram out of 4. i think thats a 32/64 bit limitation.

[Ninja B]

I would suggest sticking to XP and stay away from Vista also

[ctrlbrk]

I have a similar problem/question. Using tomshardware there is a great chart for CPU's where it's broken down by benchmark. The real question is, what type of math NT uses and how it would best compare to the synthetic benchmarks in the tomshardware list.

Also, when is NT 7 due out? Public beta first?

Mike

[mainstream]

Crzy Opt

Do you think that NJ 7, would allow one to optimize not only the parameters of the indicators, but to throw any combination of indicators and parameters at a contract to find the optimal combination?

It could take time to crunch, however, I think it would be well worth it.

[NinjaTrader_Ray]

There are a bunch of enhancements we are making in NT7 in the area of optimization.

[mainstream]

Can't wait!!

Right now I find it more efficient to simply change the variables manually than to use optimizer function.

Thanks for creating the application!

[sam028]

It's quite easy, right now, with the 6.5 version, to use a multi-core PC.
I'm using Virtualbox, on a dual-core/dual socket machine. I'm running 4 Windows XP virtual machines (a very light XP, no extra services, no anti-virus, etc), with 4 Ninja running, and it runs great. I maybe loose 2% to 5% for each mono-threaded backtest, but as I can run 4 backtests in parallel, it's fine...
Anyway, as you can have strategies with hundreds of parameters, working on millions of bars, you can easily spend zillions of hours optimizing your strategy...

[ctrlbrk]

It's quite easy, right now, with the 6.5 version, to use a multi-core PC.
I'm using Virtualbox, on a dual-core/dual socket machine. I'm running 4 Windows XP virtual machines (a very light XP, no extra services, no anti-virus, etc), with 4 Ninja running, and it runs great. I maybe loose 2% to 5% for each mono-threaded backtest, but as I can run 4 backtests in parallel, it's fine...
Anyway, as you can have strategies with hundreds of parameters, working on millions of bars, you can easily spend zillions of hours optimizing your strategy...

This is a good idea, I am considering doing the same using VMware but I wonder if it will really be necessary with NT7. I wish we had more details about the optimizations and performance of NT7, like if it can run multiple concurrent optimizations and if the memory requirement for data intensive optimizations has been addressed.

Mike

[NinjaTrader_Ray]

There will be signifcant reductions in memory and the use of muliple cores to distribute backtest runs during an optimization.