New to MC, coming from TS and a few questions...

Questions about MultiCharts and user contributed studies.
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futurestrader019
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New to MC, coming from TS and a few questions...

Postby futurestrader019 » 14 Apr 2007

I am a new user to multicharts and must say that I am impressed with the ease of transitioning from TS. As a result of my transition, I have a few questions:

1) on TS I had a 'show me' where based on the easy language a red or green dot would appear directly on my charts. Is there a way to do this in Multi?
2) on TS I could set the cursor so that if I 'grabbed' anywhere in the screen, I could scroll back and forth easily. Is there a way to do this in multi?
3) I am running Multi on a 6 monitor setup. I believe I can open a new Multi window on each screen (like I did with TS), but it appears to run massively on the system and processors with just 2 separate windows open. What do you recommend for a multi-monitor setup? Is there a way to open multiple, individual windows and not worry about an overload on the system? If not, is the only workaround to open one window and then drag it along all the screens?

Thanks!

mojotrader
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Postby mojotrader » 14 Apr 2007

futurestrader019,

I also used TS for a few years, went to Ensign, and I'm now using both Ensign and MultiCharts. I hope to eventually drop Ensign and go fulltime with MC but there are some service issues with TsSupport that I have to work out first. To answer your questions:

1. Yes you can but I'll let someone else provide details. I believe it works just like TS but you don't create "show me" indicators.

2. You can scroll left/right easily but first you must grab an object, such as price bars or an indicator. You can't grab the blank area of a chart to move it.

3. I use three lcd screens and stretch the MC application window across 2.5 of them. This setup was working fine till I noticed a significant problem using multiple workspaces. For some reason MC has problems switching workspaces when stretched over more than two screen. It's difficult to describe. MC would delay switching workspaces, appear to hang, and then may end up with a composite view of charts and/or indicators from two workspaces. When this occured other programs on top of MC would also have problems, such as painting their backgrounds. The only solution is to restart MC. However, if I I shrink the MC application window to two or less screens, I have no problems with multiple workspaces.

I would be interested to know if you have this same problem with 6 screens. You won't see the problem I described unless you have multiple workspaces each with several charts.

Guest

Postby Guest » 14 Apr 2007

futurestrader019,

I also used TS for a few years, went to Ensign, and I'm now using both Ensign and MultiCharts. I hope to eventually drop Ensign and go fulltime with MC but there are some service issues with TsSupport that I have to work out first. To answer your questions:

1. Yes you can but I'll let someone else provide details. I believe it works just like TS but you don't create "show me" indicators.

2. You can scroll left/right easily but first you must grab an object, such as price bars or an indicator. You can't grab the blank area of a chart to move it.

3. I use three lcd screens and stretch the MC application window across 2.5 of them. This setup was working fine till I noticed a significant problem using multiple workspaces. For some reason MC has problems switching workspaces when stretched over more than two screen. It's difficult to describe. MC would delay switching workspaces, appear to hang, and then may end up with a composite view of charts and/or indicators from two workspaces. When this occured other programs on top of MC would also have problems, such as painting their backgrounds. The only solution is to restart MC. However, if I I shrink the MC application window to two or less screens, I have no problems with multiple workspaces.

I would be interested to know if you have this same problem with 6 screens. You won't see the problem I described unless you have multiple workspaces each with several charts.
hi,

The problem with greater than 2 screens seem pretty basic and replicable..... did you report this to tssupport ? And what is their response ?

thanks

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futurestrader019
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Postby futurestrader019 » 14 Apr 2007

mojo - I will let you know how it goes come Monday with it stretched on my screens.

I emailed customer service but have not heard back...

Thanks!

mojotrader
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Postby mojotrader » 15 Apr 2007

hi,

The problem with greater than 2 screens seem pretty basic and replicable..... did you report this to tssupport ? And what is their response ?

thanks
I encountered the problem a couple of weeks ago but haven't had time to report it to TS. Since subscribing to TS I’ve only used two workspaces at most but now I'm trying to move up to four markets and will eventually end up with 8. With 2 workspaces you don't see this problem.

After working with TS all weekend I'm beginning to notice it may be worse than I thought. Even 4 workspaces with MC covering two screens as illustrated in the attached pics cause the problem. Note the pics have been photoshopped to reduce size and all of the workspaces have the same number of charts and indicators, although the markets are different.

The first pic shows a working MC. As I switch workspaces the problem occurs as described in my first post in this thread. The second pic is all I could get of the problem using PrtScn. I couldn't get a pic of the MC App window using Alt-PrtScn so I had to do a full print screen that included all three lcd monitors and this is what I got. For some reason when MC fails it also causes Alt-PrtScn to fail as well.

Despite the obvious image/color problems of the second pic captured by PrtScn, the layout should be similar to the first but it’s not. Note the duplicate indicators combined from two different workspaces. Also the skinny chart on the far right is actually the wrong chart.

This is a serious problem but not a show stopper for me….yet. TS is usually pretty good about addressing serious issues however you may have to wait for the next release to get an update. No interim patches or weekly updates like Ensign.

Here’s my display configuration:

Display 1: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT
Display 2 & 3: NVIDIA Quadro NVS 55/280 PCI
Driver: NVIDIA 6.14.10.9371 Dated 10/22/2006
Monitor: 3 Dell UltraSharp 2001FP

Resolution: 1600 x 1200 with 32 bit color on all three displays.

Note turning off hardware acceleration settings on all three displays doesn’t help either.
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futurestrader019
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Postby futurestrader019 » 15 Apr 2007

mojo - thanks for sharing! Not sure if anyone from TS Support visits the forum, but I hope they do!

Still no reply to my email.

Guest

Postby Guest » 15 Apr 2007

mojo,
thanks for the info, hopefully MC can respond.

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Postby futurestrader019 » 17 Apr 2007

Got an email back re: multi-monitors.

Go to File->Preferences and uncheck "Open Workspaces on
Start" check box.

This will prevent a bunch of workspaces from opening and causing your system to stall.

Also, I was able to create a separate window on each monitor vs. having one window open and stretching it across my screens. This is obviously much easier to work with now as well.

Guest

Postby Guest » 17 Apr 2007

Got an email back re: multi-monitors.

Go to File->Preferences and uncheck "Open Workspaces on
Start" check box.

This will prevent a bunch of workspaces from opening and causing your system to stall.

Also, I was able to create a separate window on each monitor vs. having one window open and stretching it across my screens. This is obviously much easier to work with now as well.
But this is NOT a SOLUTION as i would like MC to automatically open the last used workspaces on startup.

I do not want to have to open up a number of workspaces every morning.

This sounds like a workaround, but not a proper fix to the problem... can MC respond ?

thank you

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Kate
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Postby Kate » 18 Apr 2007

Mojotrader,

Thank you for the screenshots. Our developers think that the problem is that you don't have enough video memory to use MultiCharts on three monitors, but to give you a definite answer they need to analyze the logs. Could you send me the logs to tokareva@tssupport.com?
Currently they are working on optimizing memory usage so that MultiCharts will consume not only video memory but also RAM.

mojotrader
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Postby mojotrader » 18 Apr 2007

Mojotrader,

Thank you for the screenshots. Our developers think that the problem is that you don't have enough video memory to use MultiCharts on three monitors, but to give you a definite answer they need to analyze the logs. Could you send me the logs to tokareva@tssupport.com?
Currently they are working on optimizing memory usage so that MultiCharts will consume not only video memory but also RAM.
Kate,

Log files on their way.

Thanks,
~mojo

P.S. I recreated the problem before sending you the files. I noticed a number of dump files were created by MC when the problem occurred.

mojotrader
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Postby mojotrader » 19 Apr 2007

For those of you following the thread, TS Support determined my problem with many workspaces over three monitors (2 video cards) is caused by lack of video memory. I have 128MB on card 1 and 64MB on card 2 which just isn't enough to support the many charts/workspaces that I'm trying to run. Accroding to Kate, the developers are working on optimizing memory use in future versions.

Any recommendations on video cards? I'm currently running NVIDIA GForce 6600GT w/128MB of memory for card 1 and NVIDIA Quadro NVS 280 w/64MB of memory for card 2.



Kate,
Is there an easy way to determine minimum video memory requirements based on workspace/chart usage? This might be helpful to those with multi-monitor setups and multiple charts/workspaces?

Thanks again Kate and TS Support developers for your quick response.

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Postby Kate » 19 Apr 2007

Kate,
Is there an easy way to determine minimum video memory requirements based on workspace/chart usage? This might be helpful to those with multi-monitor setups and multiple charts/workspaces?
I cannot provide you with such formulas, but I know for sure that there is no easy way to determine it.

Guest

Postby Guest » 19 Apr 2007

For those of you following the thread, TS Support determined my problem with many workspaces over three monitors (2 video cards) is caused by lack of video memory. I have 128MB on card 1 and 64MB on card 2 which just isn't enough to support the many charts/workspaces that I'm trying to run. Accroding to Kate, the developers are working on optimizing memory use in future versions.

Any recommendations on video cards? I'm currently running NVIDIA GForce 6600GT w/128MB of memory for card 1 and NVIDIA Quadro NVS 280 w/64MB of memory for card 2.



Kate,
Is there an easy way to determine minimum video memory requirements based on workspace/chart usage? This might be helpful to those with multi-monitor setups and multiple charts/workspaces?

Thanks again Kate and TS Support developers for your quick response.
IF MC has managed to determined that the problem is due to lack of video memory, I am sure MC developers would have a PC that manages to run MC over 3 monitors.

So could Kate give us an idea what kind of configurations your developers are using to run MC over 3 monitors without any problems ?

That can give us a headstart as to the kind of hardware required.

thanks

ybfjax
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Postby ybfjax » 21 Apr 2007

For those of you following the thread, TS Support determined my problem with many workspaces over three monitors (2 video cards) is caused by lack of video memory. I have 128MB on card 1 and 64MB on card 2 which just isn't enough to support the many charts/workspaces that I'm trying to run. Accroding to Kate, the developers are working on optimizing memory use in future versions.

Any recommendations on video cards? I'm currently running NVIDIA GForce 6600GT w/128MB of memory for card 1 and NVIDIA Quadro NVS 280 w/64MB of memory for card 2.

edit: windows sees the 3 monitors as 1. So windows sees a total of 2 monitors. The primary monitor, and the secondary monitor that is split onto 3 monitors with the 3head2go card.



Kate,
Is there an easy way to determine minimum video memory requirements based on workspace/chart usage? This might be helpful to those with multi-monitor setups and multiple charts/workspaces?

Thanks again Kate and TS Support developers for your quick response.
Not really. I have 128 mb Video card and have run multiple windows before. I use Matrox TripleHead2Go. It basically stretches the 2nd monitor over 3 monitors, so windows sees it as 1 big monitor. So a total of 4 monitors in a dual-output 128mb NVIDIA. I've had multiple workspaces and it has worked out ok. Haven't tried to max it out though.

The machine itself is P4, 3.0ghz 2gig RAM.

Not using MC much these days until support for OEC comes. Just got ahold of NeoTicker.
Last edited by ybfjax on 21 May 2007, edited 1 time in total.

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Kate
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Postby Kate » 24 Apr 2007

IF MC has managed to determined that the problem is due to lack of video memory, I am sure MC developers would have a PC that manages to run MC over 3 monitors.

So could Kate give us an idea what kind of configurations your developers are using to run MC over 3 monitors without any problems ?
We tested on a two-monitor set-up and MultiCharts worked correctly. I recommend you to wait till the next version where video memory usage will be optimized is released.

Guest

Postby Guest » 24 Apr 2007

IF MC has managed to determined that the problem is due to lack of video memory, I am sure MC developers would have a PC that manages to run MC over 3 monitors.

So could Kate give us an idea what kind of configurations your developers are using to run MC over 3 monitors without any problems ?
We tested on a two-monitor set-up and MultiCharts worked correctly. I recommend you to wait till the next version where video memory usage will be optimized is released.
The problem reported by Mojo is about running MC over 3 monitors.

IF Tssupport has never tested MC over 3 monitors.. then you guys should have been frank about it, instead of just telling users that it is a hardware problem. It gives users the impression that they may need to upgrade graphics cards for it to work.

Telling users half the picture is just not good enough.

Guest

Postby Guest » 25 Apr 2007

turn off 3D.
you don't need 3D for charts.
use 2D is fine.

you can also reduce the color depth.

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Postby ybfjax » 26 Apr 2007

You may want to consider tweaking windows a bit. http://forum.tssupport.com/viewtopic.php?t=3572 . When I test out OEC when I get my new demo login, I will see if this improves MC any.

I can see somewhat of an improvement between OEC trader and NeoTicker. Before the tweaks, I couldn't even run the 2 together without some kind of conflict.

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Postby futurestrader019 » 26 Apr 2007

Since posting this initial thread, I have not had any problems using MC on 6 monitors. I have 3 video cards and each supports 2 monitors. Apparently memory is not an issue b/c I have not had any problems. I had this computer built for the purpose of multi-charting, so I guess the guy did a good job building it!

Guest

Postby Guest » 27 Apr 2007

Since posting this initial thread, I have not had any problems using MC on 6 monitors. I have 3 video cards and each supports 2 monitors. Apparently memory is not an issue b/c I have not had any problems. I had this computer built for the purpose of multi-charting, so I guess the guy did a good job building it!
FuturesTrader019,
Would appreciate it, if you could share your hardware and software configuration with us....

1. What OS... XP or Vista or Win2K ?
2. What graphics cards ?
3. What monitors ?
4. What resolutions and color depth are you running on the monitors ?

thank you

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futurestrader019
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Postby futurestrader019 » 27 Apr 2007

1. What OS... XP or Vista or Win2K ?
XP Pro SP2

2. What graphics cards ?
Looks like I have:
1) NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
2) NVIDIA GeForce MX 4000
3) NVIDIA GeForce MX 4000


3. What monitors ?
Samsung SyncMaster 712N

4. What resolutions and color depth are you running on the monitors ?
All monitors are set to 1280 x 1024 pixels with the highest (32 bit) color quality.

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Kate
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Postby Kate » 27 Apr 2007

IF Tssupport has never tested MC over 3 monitors.. then you guys should have been frank about it, instead of just telling users that it is a hardware problem. It gives users the impression that they may need to upgrade graphics cards for it to work.
Dear guest,

As you can read above we don't advise our users on how to get rid of their old video cards and run for the new ones. We recommend them to wait for the next release because our developers have already taken measures to optimize memory usage.

By the way, when a pc runs out of memory it can be easily seen in the logs.

Guest

Postby Guest » 27 Apr 2007

IF Tssupport has never tested MC over 3 monitors.. then you guys should have been frank about it, instead of just telling users that it is a hardware problem. It gives users the impression that they may need to upgrade graphics cards for it to work.
Dear guest,

As you can read above we don't advise our users on how to get rid of their old video cards and run for the new ones. We recommend them to wait for the next release because our developers have already taken measures to optimize memory usage.

By the way, when a pc runs out of memory it can be easily seen in the logs.
Why can't you guys be honest about it and tell your customers that you have NEVER tested Multicharts over 3 monitors ?

So the realty is that there is inefficiency in the software that hogs memory....

Like i said.. telling users half the story is not good enough.

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futurestrader019
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Postby futurestrader019 » 27 Apr 2007

IF Tssupport has never tested MC over 3 monitors.. then you guys should have been frank about it, instead of just telling users that it is a hardware problem. It gives users the impression that they may need to upgrade graphics cards for it to work.
Dear guest,

As you can read above we don't advise our users on how to get rid of their old video cards and run for the new ones. We recommend them to wait for the next release because our developers have already taken measures to optimize memory usage.

By the way, when a pc runs out of memory it can be easily seen in the logs.
Why can't you guys be honest about it and tell your customers that you have NEVER tested Multicharts over 3 monitors ?

So the realty is that there is inefficiency in the software that hogs memory....

Like i said.. telling users half the story is not good enough.
Guest - I don't see what the big deal is. I have a decent computer that was built for trading and these run just fine as is. I know I am not running the latest and greatest video cards as this computer was built almost 2 years ago.

To repeat, in the current state MC runs fine on computers that are built for trading purposes. Perhaps your run of the mill Gateway or EMachines will not run it, but it does not take much to have these run just fine.

The current cost of the video cards that I am using range from $50 - $80 each currently. That's not exactly top of the line. And these support SIX monitors w/ no problems.

Guest

Postby Guest » 29 Apr 2007

Dear guest,

As you can read above we don't advise our users on how to get rid of their old video cards and run for the new ones. We recommend them to wait for the next release because our developers have already taken measures to optimize memory usage.

By the way, when a pc runs out of memory it can be easily seen in the logs.
Why can't you guys be honest about it and tell your customers that you have NEVER tested Multicharts over 3 monitors ?

So the realty is that there is inefficiency in the software that hogs memory....

Like i said.. telling users half the story is not good enough.
Guest - I don't see what the big deal is. I have a decent computer that was built for trading and these run just fine as is. I know I am not running the latest and greatest video cards as this computer was built almost 2 years ago.

To repeat, in the current state MC runs fine on computers that are built for trading purposes. Perhaps your run of the mill Gateway or EMachines will not run it, but it does not take much to have these run just fine.

The current cost of the video cards that I am using range from $50 - $80 each currently. That's not exactly top of the line. And these support SIX monitors w/ no problems.
Noticed, in my posts.. not once did i mentioned cost... maybe it matters to you and others but not to me.....

The issue is with the level of honesty and integrity of MC support.

There is a lot of difference between saying.. its hardware or memory issue... versus saying we just have not tested our software on more than 3 monitors yet.....

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futurestrader019
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Postby futurestrader019 » 29 Apr 2007

Well, my point was that you can EASILY use MC on multiple monitors with little cost. That's my point. Which in turn means that as long as you have somewhat decent video cards, MC works fine.

As a matter of fact, I was told by MC that they have users that have tested and used MC on up to 72 monitors at once. So, if that's what you needed to hear, there you go.

Guest

Postby Guest » 29 Apr 2007

Well, my point was that you can EASILY use MC on multiple monitors with little cost. That's my point. Which in turn means that as long as you have somewhat decent video cards, MC works fine.

As a matter of fact, I was told by MC that they have users that have tested and used MC on up to 72 monitors at once. So, if that's what you needed to hear, there you go.
Sorry, That's not what i want to hear...
I don't want to hear from you who heard from MC who heard from their users and all that....

I just want to hear from the horses mouth....
So far the post from Kate in this thread is that MC has only confirmed that they tested MC on a 2 monitor setup and its working fine.

MC did not confirmed whether they have ever managed to run MC on 3 monitor setup.


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