NT8 laggy in a virtual machine

[claxxical]

I'm running NT8 in a virtual machine (virtualbox, windows 10 host, windows 10 guest) and the UI performance is really sluggish. From my googling, it seems like WPF performance in VM's tends to be bad so I was wondering if anyone is able to pull this off without their CPU spiking to nearly 100% on rendering the crosshairs when you move your mouse?

I have a dual core Kaby Lake i7, 16gb ram (4 in the vm) and ssd's. My specs shouldn't be a problem although 4 cores would be nice. The exact same system with NT7 works perfectly as it is not WPF. I've tried playing with the vm system/display settings but nothing seems to help. There's definitely a very low ceiling on UI interaction performance. WPF is supposed to offload graphics to the CPU when a GPU isn't present, as this is a VM. Maybe this is a Microsoft issue?

I know that there are hosted Ninjatrader services out there, are they running NT8? If so, how are they doing it?

[sledge]

Sounds about right from I remember reading other posts from early BETA observations.

If you open your trace or log file, you should see there's no hardware rendering.

[koganam]

I'm running NT8 in a virtual machine (virtualbox, windows 10 host, windows 10 guest) and the UI performance is really sluggish. From my googling, it seems like WPF performance in VM's tends to be bad so I was wondering if anyone is able to pull this off without their CPU spiking to nearly 100% on rendering the crosshairs when you move your mouse?

I have a dual core Kaby Lake i7, 16gb ram (4 in the vm) and ssd's. My specs shouldn't be a problem although 4 cores would be nice. The exact same system with NT7 works perfectly as it is not WPF. I've tried playing with the vm system/display settings but nothing seems to help. There's definitely a very low ceiling on UI interaction performance. WPF is supposed to offload graphics to the CPU when a GPU isn't present, as this is a VM. Maybe this is a Microsoft issue?

I know that there are hosted Ninjatrader services out there, are they running NT8? If so, how are they doing it?

The VM has no DirectX hardware, so NT8 is using software rendering. It is slow. You can see the evidence by looking in the trace file.

[claxxical]

I've been running NT7 in a vm for over 6 years and there has never been a performance issue. I'm assuming NT7 uses win forms as opposed to WPF in NT8 so is the WPF software rendering THAT bad compared to win forms?

My current machine has a 4k screen and running NT8 natively is smooth until you maximize a chart. You experience a bit of a slowdown moving the mouse around as the crosshairs lag a bit. This is while disconnected and no data flowing through. Has anyone else experienced this?

[sledge]

My current machine has a 4k screen and running NT8 natively is smooth until you maximize a chart. You experience a bit of a slowdown moving the mouse around as the crosshairs lag a bit. This is while disconnected and no data flowing through. Has anyone else experienced this?

Yes, there are many previous posts about this exact thing.

I did run NT7 the other day and examined crosshairs specifically. If anyone notices - it doesn't always refresh the axis or refresh the crosshair. NT8 is trying to refresh the axis and line all the time.

[claxxical]

By saying refresh, do you mean the crosshairs stay on the chart when your mouse is off?

[sledge]

No, I mean update interval.

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hello claxxical,

koganam is correct in that chart rendering in NinjaTrader 8 is with DirectX which is designed to run on the GPU graphic hardware while NinjaTrader 7 uses GDI+ which is designed to run on the CPU as software rendered.

I will further research if SharpDX is slower than GDI+ when running with software rendering and I will let you know what I find.

That said, its my understanding the crosshairs possibly may not be using the DirectX rending (whereas the rest of the rendered area of the chart does) and I will need to further research this as well.

I appreciate your patience while I find out more information.

[claxxical]

Chelsea,

Thank you so much for your help. Even though I bought the lifetime license years ago, I'm stuck using NT7 because I have to run the platform in a vm and NT8 performance is unacceptable. If NT8 at least had workspaces (http://ninjatrader.com/support/forum...d.php?t=100960) then I could maybe run it natively and skip the vm altogether but that still doesn't solve the laggy crosshair problem with a maximized chart.

I run NT in a vm for several reasons:

- I switch back and forth between linux and windows on my main pc

- I want workspaces. I can hack this by having multiple virtual monitors which are then only one item each on my taskbar

- I also prefer running NT on a clean, stripped down Windows installation with extra security/firewall rules

- I'm away from the computer a lot and I VNC in. Running in a vm only shows NT with all monitors side by side which is nice

All that to say, I could skip the vm with first-class workspace support.

[koganam]

...

I run NT in a vm for several reasons:

- I switch back and forth between linux and windows on my main pc

- I want workspaces. I can hack this by having multiple virtual monitors which are then only one item each on my taskbar

- I also prefer running NT on a clean, stripped down Windows installation with extra security/firewall rules

- I'm away from the computer a lot and I VNC in. Running in a vm only shows NT with all monitors side by side which is nice

All that to say, I could skip the vm with first-class workspace support.

Except for reason 3, that is pretty much why those of us who do, run NT in a VM.

My nunber 3 reads: "I also prefer running NT on a clean, stripped down Windows installation with no resource hogging antimalware extra security/firewall rules."

[claxxical]

Except for reason 3, that is pretty much why those of us who do, run NT in a VM.

My nunber 3 reads: "I also prefer running NT on a clean, stripped down Windows installation with no resource hogging antimalware extra security/firewall rules."

By that I also mean no antimalware no browsing or connecting to the internet besides NT directly in my vm

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hello claxxical,

Thank you for providing the link for clarify.

I would recommend phrasing this as window placement grouping support within workspaces to avoid confusion as NinjaTrader does have have something called workspaces.

Once I have more information about the rendering and about the crosshairs I will update this thread.

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hello claxxical,

I have received some information back from our development.

The Crosshair is WPF.

- WPF is built to render on the graphics card.

- WPF is not optimized for CPU rendering like GDI+. Will actually run slower then GDI+ overall when running on the CPU via WARP. (Windows advanced resterizationplatform) .

Hence, WPF is overall heavier to render and you wont get the same performance. This is a Microsoft design decision and not specific to NinjaTrader. Microsoft / NinjaTrader highly recommends a video card and hardware rendering, especially if you want better crosshair performance.

[claxxical]

Thanks, understood, just as we've been saying. So I guess that means NT8 will never run well in a vm, oh well.

[hurleydood]

I'm guessing NT9 will go back to GDI+. There is no point is utilizing the GPU for a 2D application if it's going to be way slower. NT7 uses way less CPU even with all that CPU rendering it's doing. I noticed NT8 draws charts at 4 frames per second. It's like your seeing snapshots of the data and you are running an additional 250ms behind. Many trading applications both Native and Web-Based run like butter. Even graphic intensive 3D first person shooters run like butter on my iPhone and my PC. Usually those who run this app in a VM are those trying to get a speed advantage by co-location their VM closer to the exchange only to lose that benefit because the application is laggy.