What do you think? Will NT run faster if I downgrade from Vista to XP?

[AnotherTrader]

What do the experts think?

I just want NT to run as fast as possible on my trading PC, and I don't use my trading PC for anything else.

Will NT run faster if I backgrade my PC from Windows Vista to Windows XP?

Grateful for any comments ...

(Also, will I have problems with NT 7 if I end up using XP?)

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Hello AnotherTrade,

Unfortunately I am not sure if this will improve the performance of NinjaTrader. I suggest to test it on your end and check if you experience any difference.

NinjaTrader is supported on both operating systems.

[AnotherTrader]

Thanks, Jason. Will do ...

My thinking was that NT's recommended system requirements are "1GB RAM or higher on XP and 2GB or higher on Vista" ... from which I reason that Vista must put a bigger load on the RAM.

Therefore, with the same RAM (4.096 MM SDRAM DDR2), will XP run faster than Vista ...

I'll test to see ...

[maxima]

use Win7. Same fast as XP

But if your problem is NT memory leaks then no system will help. Wait for stable NT7

[AnotherTrader]

But Win7 is not supported for NT (... well not yet, anyway ... see http://www.ninjatrader.com/webnew/su...ationguide.htm), so this could introduce new problems.

As I say, I don't use the trading PC for anything other than NT, so I just need to make it run fast, so I am not fussed by "downgrading" to XP if it makes things run faster ...

I am told that Vista demands more resources so XP should make more resources available for the application ...

[maxima]

well. you already made a decision why to ask

[David Lean]

XP faster = doubtful

There are many benchmarks & a ton of press comparing Vista vs XP.
Often they are superficial &/or ill-thought through tests.

• Looking at the minimum memory requirements of an OS tells you nothing. NinjaTrader doesn't use a lot of RAM. But clearly the more charts & data feeds you run simultanously the more it needs.
• Far more important is network speeds, to get your tick data & order execution quickly. Also fast/efficient video is needed as NJ renders in .NET & you want to see the ticks quickly. Fast disk access is important to cache the data feeds. In short you need to think about the broader picture of a) "how efficient are the device drivers when running a .NET application". b)what other services are running that I don't really need"
• A modren video card with a up-to-date DirectX 10 driver (only avaliable on Vista or Win7) will normally outperform an older DirectX 9 system on XP.

Perhaps a better way of looking at this is :-
Look at Task Manager &/or Resource Monitor. Are you using a lot of Memory &/or large amounts of Page File. If no, then memory not an issue.
If Yes, Then look at the processes you have running (remember to "show all users" to see everything that was started as a service. Most of these services that are set to Autostart, you might not be using.

Vista starts more crap that you don't need than XP does. (sure these things also make it nicer for the avg user ie: Plug n Play, Search et.al) We found that for a absolute minimal memory system. We were able to get a smaller memory footprint running Vista than XP after we'd disabled all the services we didn't want. And it was more secure. (We were putting it on 1,000+ Point of Sale Retail Cash Registers. Also building demo laptops to host Virtual Machines)

Another thing to watch for is extra search engines installed for free. These are by far the biggest perf killers on your system. And they install like a virus. One search engine might help you find files & be worth the load of scanning & causing your virus scanner to recheck the files as it indexes. But 2 or more are "all overhead & no benefit" So when Adobe installs the "Google Search engine" because you forgot to uncheck the box, then Yahoo installs its stuff with someone else & maybe you got the Microsoft version with MS Live & someone elses etc. You finish up with 2-5 toolbars in your internet broswer & all hammering your disk drive. NO useful work can get to your drive & your PC runs slow.


In long, Your choice of OS is probably the least important factor in having your PC run fast. The way you maintain it & configure it is everything.

My recommendation would be Windows 7, when NJ certifies it. Drivers have been further optimised & its default install doesn't turn in so many services (for you to turn off). But while you are waiting for that, I'd leave it at vista.

[AnotherTrader]

Thank you for your detailed and considered response, David

All makes sense.

I autotrade, and am starting to collect a growing library of my own trading systems built on NT. Multi-timeframe and multi-instrument systems seem to play a major role (so lots of open charts).

After my post some weeks back, I purchased a new machine to be my dedicated trading PC. This means I now develop new “systems” (i.e. strategies) on one machine (my “old” computer, a 9-month old Packard Bell Easynote TN36 with Pentium Dual CPU T3400 2.17GHz, and 4Gb RAM, running Vista).

Once ready, my “live” systems get moved to my new machine (OS is XP), where I run NT, eSignal, MB Trading’s MBT Navigator, Symantec anti-virus + management software for a Trust UPS). I need the trading machine to be responsive, able to deal with lots of open charts on many instruments, and stable (so that it can babysit my “live” systems reliably while I am working away on the other machine developing new ones!).

The new machine is a Dell Vostro Desktop 220 MT Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3,00 GHz, cache 6 MB, with SDRAM DDR2 4.096 MB. It came loaded with XP Professional OS, and also came with extra media discs so that I can “upgrade” to Vista if necessary.

I have to say that my impression is that the new computer is giving me much better performance with NT (“excellent” performance, in fact) than my old one did.

This could be for any number of reasons:

· Perhaps it’s because XP gives me better “NT performance” than Vista does for the same open charts and strategies on both machines?

· Perhaps it’s because my new Dell is a more powerful machine than my old Packard Bell (I am not enough of a hardware/OS expert to be able to know)?

· Perhaps (as you correctly point out) it’s because I have less “crap” on my new computer than I do on my “old” one (but other than removing obviously unneeded programs from a computer, I am not knowledgeable enough to know which of the 122 services running on my “old” Vista machine are really necessary or not ... BTW my new XP machine is running only 49 services, by comparison)?

· Perhaps it is because I have – so far – been able to keep my 5-year old daughter (and twin, 1-year old sons) away from the new machine, but never managed that with the old one?

Anyway, I am very happy now with the way the new set-up is working.

I’ll take a look at NT7 once it’s certified for Windows 7, and been stable like that for a while. By which time it will probably be time to upgrade my whole set up again ...

[deanz]

Thank you for taking the time to post that David, very informative.

Just out of interest, how do you go about determining what services you can turn off ?

Dean
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[Savage1701]

Thank you for taking the time to post that David, very informative.

Just out of interest, how do you go about determining what services you can turn off ?

Dean
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If you are using XP, go Start to Run, type "msconfig" and look at the services and startup tabs. Under the services tab, you can check "hide all Microsoft Services" and then, if you want, one at a time, untick a service. Be careful, some may be necessary. You should notice, if you have a ton of services running for things you don't need, that if you uncheck enough of those your machine will boot somewhat quicker and may run faster. If you are unsure, uncheck one at a time and reboot each time. That way if you accidentally disable a necessary program's service, you won't have to wonder which of the last 20 you unticked messed things up. You can also do much of the same under the "startup" tab, again, one at a time. I have my system set not to load AOL, Yahoo messenger, etc. unless I launch them, not at startup.

I'd be careful, though, and certainly not attempt this on a trading day - try it on a weekend, for example. And do a restore point first, and maybe even ghost the image of your drive if you are especially nervous. You will also get a screen at every startup telling you that you are on "selective startup". You can disable that if you want and if you are happy with the way things are going.

If done correctly, you can make a modest impact on a system by not loading unnecessary startup items and running services at startup, especially in this context.

One other thing - Under XP, a correctly aligned Solid State Drive with a good controller (OCZ/Indilinx Barefoot Controller or Samsung Controller w/ various drive mfgs.) can make an ENORMOUS difference. (Alignment is automatice under Vista & Win7). I totally rejuvinated my aging Pentium D 940 system on one of my trading platforms. Doing an SSD right will literally shave years off the age of your system. I've even heard of people running old Pentium III's that put a good SSD on their system. Done right, a good SSD will give you fantastic boot times and app launch and responsiveness.

[David Lean]

You could finetune Savage1701's approach by attempting to find out what each service does & then test / decide if you need it.
MSPress ships many textbooks on the subject, also can search online, or just read the description in the Services dialog, where you are changing these from Automatic to Manual or disable. (Vista & Win7 give much better insight than XP)
But as a general rule;
1. Uninstall all garbage programs you aren't using; Internet Toolbars, google & other search, Windows Sidebars gadgets etc.
2. Do the same for Windows features: eg: Do you really need the "World wide Web Publishing Service" installed on your trading machine?
3. Set lots of services to manual & turn them on/off if you need them:
eg: Print Spooler: If you never print from that machine, it can be shut down.
Plug and Play: Once youy PC is stable, Keep if off, but. remember to start it if you need to add/ remove a USB disk or something.
Terminal Services: If you never connect to your machine remotely. you don't need it.
sorry the list is too long to type here, so I hope you get the idea.
4. When you do this. Remember to use Task Manager to watch how much memory each service is using. Just stop it & see the changein "Memory Used". This should give you an idea on what sort of impact it is having on memory. You can also sort by CPU to see how often if requests the CPU.

[Savage1701]

David:

You make excellent points. No reason not to Google or otherwise look up the service first if it's not obvious, and of course, I completely agree with you - why run a print spooling service if you never print from your trading platform CPU.

My process is admittedly tedious, but has the benefit of immediately knowing if something is mission-critical. That being said, I fully admit to turning off a whole bunch of stuff at once and winging it. It usually works.

You are also certainly correct that all those little startup apps and services burn RAM like it's going out of style, and heaven forbid one of those has a memory leak...

[David Lean]

Please don’t take it as criticism. I totally agree with your approach. In the absence of deep insight the trial & error approach will do the trick.
I’d suggest you document what you turn off. (set to manual)
Many of these services will not immediately affect your experience. It is only when you need them that something will go wrong.
Eg: Stopping the Print Spooler service is fine. It is only when you try to print that you’ll see error messages. But if you documented that you thought it might be related to printing. When you got errors you could try starting it again.
Stopping SeaPort, you’ll never even see an error message, unless you look at the Windows Event viewer. But you’ll find the windows search to be crap as your indexes & history will not be getting updated. Again perhaps you don’t care. If you only keep tick data on your machine, & never lose your documents, you don’t need search. Just open File Explorer & your file will be where you put it. If you find you do care, You can guess what to start, then leave it a day or two to get updates & reindex your system.
Thus reading the description is very useful. Eg: “Certificate Propagation” = “Propagates certificates from smart cards”. If your laptop has a smart card reader & most do. This will be on. If you don’t own a smart card & never “VPN into the corporate network”. It is a safe bet you’ll never miss this service.
The following is a subset, mainly Vista/Win7 but also relevant to XP.
Remember, I don't know what else you expect your PC to do, so be careful. but this may help.
Don’t turn off:

• Workstaton.
• Windows Update (unless you regularly do it yourself)
• Windows Time (Ninja needs your clock to be in sync)
• Windows Management Instrumentation.
• Windows Firewall (unless you use another Firewall vendor)
• Windows Event Log (You’ll be fine without it, but never be able to troubleshoot or see if you’ve been hacked)
• Windows Driver Foundation,
• Windows Audio,
• User Profile Service.

Good ones to turn off on dedicated Trading PC’s

• Windows Search, Google Search, Yahoo search etc.
• Windows Mobile-based device connectivity. (unless you sync to your PDA / phone)
• Windows Mobile 2003-based device connectivity
• Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)
• Virtual Server, Virtual Machine Helper (may prevent you from sharing your screen with others)
• Terminal Services
• Themes
• Telephony (unless you use VIOP)
• Task Scheduler (unless you automate your PC to run batch jobs at specific times. Which you should do but no one does )
• Tablet PC Input Service
• Server (but might stop you sharing files over the net.
• Offline files

Sorry ran out of chars for this post. Good luck.

[Savage1701]

Again, no offense taken. You have obviously researched this more deeply than I have.

Regards,

Steve

[deanz]

Thanks for the replies David and Savage, good stuff. I put together an old ****ta computer to surf the net and stuff so as to unload my trading computer a bit so any changes to it are not critical.

I found what seems to be a popular and free registry backup program that can restore the registry from the C prompt if things got real bad, it's very minimalistic and you need to read the readme file:

http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/

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