Chart load time is slowing down

[rcsingleton]

NT 64-bit 7.0.1000.35

The load time for my ES charts is increasing.

Is there an NT file that is filling up somewhere that I can prune to decrease load time?

Also, if you want my LOG and TRACE files, can you give me a ticket number?

Regards,
R. C.

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hello R. C.,

Recently, the markets have experienced high volatility and high volume which produces a higher than usual amount of ticks that must be processed by all indicators, in all open workspaces, on all charts.

Slow performance is typically attributed to an overworked CPU.

The performance when NinjaTrader is loading a workspace or opening a chart is attributed to the processing of historical data. After the workspace or chart has loaded and all historical data has been processed the performance is primarily affected by real-time data being processed.

You can experience unresponsive behavior in NinjaTrader if you have many charts, indicators and other windows opened and this is depending on market volatility as well.


Focusing on real-time performance (after the workspace or chart has loaded):

Using 3rd party add ons that use lots of resources can cause performance freezes, especially during peak trading.

The 'Calculate on bar close' setting for indicators can be important. If set to 'False' the indicator will be calculated on each incoming tick. During high volatility this can be very CPU intensive especially if the indicator makes complicated calculations. Please set it to True in the Indicator parameters and the indicator will only be calculated at the end of each price bar which reduces the load on your computer by a large amount.

The greater the number of charts open with indicators running with Calculate on bar close set to 'False', the more demand is placed on the CPU core that NinjaTrader is running on.

There also may be a recent increase in market activity for this instrument. The more ticks the exchange sends out, the more CPU cycles that need to be processed by NinjaTrader. This means a workspace/chart setup that was working fine for the last few months may not now have the overhead to keep up with the sheer number of ticks that are being processed today or in the last few days.


Focusing on load performance (as the chart or workspace opens and processes historical data):

When opening a workspace, the amount of data loading and the number of indicators are the biggest factor for how quickly that workspace will open or a chart will load. The Days to load setting in the Data Series window controls how much historical data is loading. The more data that loads, the longer it will take for the indicator to process that historical data and load the chart.

All indicators will need to process for every historical data bar on the chart. Some may even need to process all individual historical ticks for that period as well. The more indicators and the more charts there are, the longer the initial load of the workspace or chart will take.

Further, indicators that perform heavy calculations will load slower than indicators that are not as CPU intensive. This is compounded by the amount of historical data a CPU intensive indicator must process.


Tips to improve performance

If you have workspaces opened in the background which you do not use, we suggest to close such workspaces.

To do this in NinjaTrader 7:

• Please go to Control Center -> File -> Workspaces and check what workspaces are listed below the separator line
• The workspace with the checkmark is the workspace opened on your monitor
• Any additional workspaces listed under the separator line are opened in the background and are using resources
• Please select a workspace without the checkmark
• Subsequently, go to Control Center -> File -> Workspaces -> Close Workspace
• Repeat this procedure until only 1 workspace is opened

Below is a publicly available link to the help guide on workspaces in NinjaTrader 7.
https://ninjatrader.com/support/help...workspaces.htm


On the chart, items that will improve real-time performance (after the chart has loaded):

• Remove redundant charts and indicators
• Set as many chart indicators as possible to 'Calculate on bar close' as 'True'
• Set the "Display update interval" to a higher value on your chart in the chart Properties window

Items that will improve load time performance (as the chart opens and loads historical data):

• Remove redundant charts and indicators
• Reduce the number of 'Days to load' to improve a charts initial loading time

More tips and suggestions to improve the performance of NinjaTrader can be found at the link below.
http://www.ninjatrader.com/support/h...ance_tips2.htm

Please let me know if reducing the load on the CPU does not improve the performance.


As a heads up, the NinjaTrader 7 UI runs in a single thread. This means it is only able to utilize a single core of a multiple core CPU.
As an example if the CPU has 4 logical processors, NinjaTrader will max out the processor core it is running on at 25% of total CPU in the Windows Task Manager.

NinjaTrader 8 has been designed as a multi-threaded application to utilize multiple cores in a multi-core CPU and has many other design changes to improve performance.

See whats new in NinjaTrader 8 from the link below.

https://ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt8/index.html?whats_new.htm#BetaG

See tips about improving performance in NinjaTrader 8.

https://ninjatrader.com/support/forum/forum/ninjatrader-8/platform-technical-support-aa/1055200-nt8-jump-in-memory-usage?p=1055235#post1055235

Currently, NinjaTrader 7 is on 7.0.1000.40. Updates to NinjaTrader will contain the latest security updates and bug fixes, as well as new instruments and rollover dates.

To update NinjaTrader

• Shutdown all programs including NinjaTrader
• Download NinjaTrader from the link below
• Click here to download NinjaTrader
• Double click the downloaded file to execute it
• Follow the on screen instructions
• Restart NinjaTrader

Please also reset instruments as well. This will pull in any newly mapped instruments, and updated rollover dates.

To do this:

• Disconnect from any connections
• Click Tools -> Options... -> select the Data tab
• Click the Reset Instruments button -> Restart NinjaTrader

[aligator]

Hello R. C.,

Recently, the markets have experienced high volatility and high volume which produces a higher than usual amount of ticks that must be processed by all indicators, in all open workspaces, on all charts.

Slow performance is typically attributed to an overworked CPU.

Hi ChelseaB,

True, volatility is high. But most likely our friend having issues is working with 1-minute charts.

My experience with NT7 and now NT8 has been that 1-Minute charts are excruciatingly loading slow compared to any other equal time frames regardless of market conditions, data feed, computer setup, etc.

I think, this has less to do with anything else other than how NT treats 1-minute data.

To confirm and see for yourself try to load 3 charts of ES (10-days data with a few indicators) and compare the loading times: a 1-minute, a 60-Seconds, and a 2000-Ticks (or enough of a tick number that would fill the same time span and producing a close profile as the 1-min chart).

The issue of 1-minute charts loading slow has been raised several times before but never was really resolved.

Cheers!

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hello aligator,

I am happy to demonstrate a CPU intensive indicator on a chart using 5 days of tick data and compare this with a chart that is using 5 days of minute data to show that with less data to process the script will run complete faster if you would like.

The more data that has to be processed the more calculations done in the code, the longer it will take for the script to complete.

That said, performance can happen with any bar type if the script is CPU intensive..

[aligator]

Hello aligator,

I am happy to demonstrate a CPU intensive indicator on a chart using 5 days of tick data and compare this with a chart that is using 5 days of minute data to show that with less data to process the script will run complete faster if you would like.

The more data that has to be processed the more calculations done in the code, the longer it will take for the script to complete.

That said, performance can happen with any bar type if the script is CPU intensive..

Hello Chelsea,

The question is not more or less data. I know it takes twice as mush time to count two buckets of pennies compared to one .

The issue is: for the same amount of data and same script complicity, a 1-minute chart of ES loads a lot slower than a 60-seconds chart or a tick chart with a bar size to produce approximately a similar bar compression.

As you said, compare a 5-days ES 1-minute chart to a 60-seconds chart or equal ticks and see the difference. Although, the larger the amount of data loaded the easier to see the loading time difference.

Thanks.

[NinjaTrader_PatrickG]

Although NinjaTrader does not have logic for what data to process first, the data provider may send tick data before minute which would result in it taking longer for the minute chart to load.