Follow Up Question regarding VPS and Lag

[iantg]

So I just now saw this thread, and this is of particular interest to me because I just started using a VPS. I have noticed that NT 8 is laggy over there, but in my case I am just running a strategy and doing nothing more than watching and collecting some output window statistics.

So my question is: Considering that I am not using charts, nor interacting with anything to take trades, any sort of laggyness in the UI would be okay provided that my strategy is running 100% lag free. Is this the case? Or am I experiencing lag of several hundred milliseconds due to this WPF on VPS issue?

Also, can anyone confirm that this has been addressed in 8.11? I had another issue where 8.11 crashed on my when live trading, so I have since rolled back to a prior version. But if 8.11 = no lag, and prior versions = lag, then I have to pick my poison somehow.

Any advice out there would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Ian

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hello iantg,

May I confirm you are specifically referring to the behavior of the cross hair only?

[iantg]

Hi Chelsea,

This is not necessarily a behavior that I am observing with cross hairs within the charting, but more of a general question.

I don't use any charting or anything that would require intense reaction time from the UI. I only have a simple strategy running that trades behinds the scenes. I don't watch charts or anything. I do print some statistics to the output window but that is about it.

In terms of what I observe, i notice that the Virtual machine I use does have a bit of a lag to it between clicking something and reacting, but in my experience all VMs have a bit of a lag, so I am not really concerned if this is just general internet latency between locations.

My questions and my concern is: Since others have mentioned general performance using issues on VMs with ninjatrader 8 being a WFP, and considering that computer resources are used differently between WFPs and WIndows apps, I was wanting to check to see if this would impact more than just GUI latency. For instance, what I would really like some insight on, is will this create a latency in running a strategy from a VM using NT 8.

I heard that in 8.11 there was an improvement to the cross hairs, but I am unsure if this addresses overall latency (assuming this was an issue to begin with, and not just a GUI lag).

So I just want to get some clarification around if there is any known latency of just running a simple strategy with no charts on a VM with NT 8 or not.

Thanks,

Ian

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hi Ian,

With virtualization software there are things that will slow down NinjaTrader.

Typically, vms are not able to access the GPU, meaning all processing will be done on the CPU. NinjaTrader is designed to run mostly on the GPU.

A program running in the VM send commands through all of the layers of the OS within the VM, and then the VM sends those to the host OS which all have to be processed again.

Memory and CPU will also be limited..

Is your CPU within the VM maxed out or is this running at minimum usage?

Has the VM run out of memory or is there still memory available?

Is the behavior reproducible without running the ninjascript strategy?

[iantg]

As far as what I have experienced.... I thought this was unrelated but perhaps it may be related to running the virtual memory too hard. I had NT 8.6 crash on me during the first 30 minutes of trading on 4 different days out of the last 6 I traded. I only switched from the current version 11, back down to 6 after it froze on me during live trading. I have a whole other thread about this, and current Patrick was working the development team to get to the bottom of the behavior I experienced with 8.11. I provided him with instructions on how to recreate this (Frozen Behavior) along with a sample code and he was able to reproduce this with 8.11 and pass it on to the developers. Here is a link to this thread below:

https://ninjatrader.com/support/forum/showthread.php?t=106562

But back to 8.6. I have ran this version very hard on a few laptops and I have never experienced any problems, but on the VM it crashed almost every day when the market really started moving. Today I switched to version 10. (11 was freezing, and 6 was crashing), and so far so good with V 10, no issues to report presently.

But aside from all the technical problems I have been having, I just wanted to get a sense of if there is any known latency around the order execution using a VM with NT 8. It sounds like based on what others on this thread mentioned, this may be the case, but then again, the lag may only be in the GUI. I don't know...

Based on the fact that I am a 100% aglo trader, I don't mind if the lag is cosmetic, but I was just wondering if there was anyone reporting lag in order execution, or if NT technical support has observed this after testing on a VM. From my side, so far I haven't observed anything that seemed like a show stopper, but if there is a known lag of even a hundred milliseconds then this defeats the point of why I am co-locating in the first place. I have no way to really quantify this because I have no baseline to compare it to. (Co-location using a dedicated server for example).

So at this point I would just like someone to confirm that there are no known delays in order execution using a VM with NT 8. Is that something that could be researched?

Thanks,

Ian

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hello Ian,

Currently, I use NinjaTrader 8 in VirtualBox and with 8.0.11.1. I am not experiencing delays with the UI or lag when placing orders when comparing with NinjaTrader running outside of VirtualBox. I have also not experienced crashing with this version (however, I do not have any custom or 3rd party scripts in NinjaTrader).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13RrlIdDzRpZHg27UvjutcYc_BC3vJK_9/view?usp=drivesdk

This may indicate that the VM is experiencing performance difficulties itself..

Have you attempted to use this on another computer in a VM with more resources and reproduced the behavior?

[iantg]

Chelsea,

Thanks for looking into this for me. I could tell your version was reacting very fast to everything, so that is good to see.

My VM lag that I observe is most likely just my personal internet latency. When I grab a chart and drag it around, it has the same lag as if I grabbed the task manager a drag it around. So I don't see anything that leads me to believe NT would be laggy.

I just wanted to double check to make sure that there was no known latency with order submitting on a VM.

I am still going with version 10, and so far so good. This is the second day with no freezes or crashes. As I mentioned in previous posts, 6 crashed almost every day and 11 froze, but it looks like 10 is stable.

I think I am all set at this point.

Thanks,

Ian