Slow chart drawing

Questions about MultiCharts and user contributed studies.
johnyx2
Posts: 36
Joined: 18 Apr 2008

Slow chart drawing

Postby johnyx2 » 12 May 2008

I have 13 workspaces with 3 charts in each for each symbol: 5m, 30m, daily.
Data comes from IB. Refill missing data is on.
They draw very slow, sometimes not at all. Lately I have been opening them one by one. Still slow, but they open.

I wonder if the cache is working, where is it located?

I remember the first time I installed MC it asked how to store data, something like if compose minutes bars out of ticks or seconds, or something like that.

I was looking all over the program where to set these preferences, but could not find.

Any help?
Thanks

york timothy
Posts: 166
Joined: 21 Nov 2007

Postby york timothy » 12 May 2008

I also find the time it takes to draw charts extremely slow. While I'm not sure if it's the way MC is configured but it almost seems as though it downloads all of the data for all of the symbols before it draws a chart. When I first open MC and select a chart I can open a second charting program and view 60 or so charts before MC has drawn the first chart.
Perhaps they should consider watchlists as opposed to workspaces. While I am certainly no programmer, there should be a way to increase the speed at which the charts are drawn. If you are only looking at a few symbols I am sure it is likely fast enough. However, if your database is a hundred or more symbols as is likely the case for an equity trader it is very slow. I sincerely hope they look at increasing the display speed for the charts. Perhaps using watchlists as opposed to workspaces will accomplish this.

Tim

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RobotMan
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Postby RobotMan » 12 May 2008

Yes, it is a pain to always see: "establishing connection", "waiting for data", and "waiting for complete history" when, if I fire up TS, bam, there the charts are. I use eSignal and I think MC is waiting for a tick of data to come through or something. I don't know, but what I do know is that it happens mostly after hours - even if I have just shut the program down and rebooted the computer. Sometimes I just keep exiting the program and restarting it. Sometimes I just leave it alone and the next morning it has finally loaded the charts - even though I only chart just 5 (Regular Trading Hour) indexes like $TVOL and $ADV (no overnight ticks) and 2 eminis that would have all the data already on the HD in cache.
Weird, huh. :roll:

Bob Perry,
Stumped in Los Altos, CA

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Marina Pashkova
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Joined: 27 Jul 2007

Re: Slow chart drawing

Postby Marina Pashkova » 13 May 2008

I have 13 workspaces with 3 charts in each for each symbol: 5m, 30m, daily.
Data comes from IB. Refill missing data is on.
They draw very slow, sometimes not at all. Lately I have been opening them one by one. Still slow, but they open.

I wonder if the cache is working, where is it located?

I remember the first time I installed MC it asked how to store data, something like if compose minutes bars out of ticks or seconds, or something like that.

I was looking all over the program where to set these preferences, but could not find.

Any help?
Thanks
What MC version are you using?

In QuoteManager -> Tools -> DataSources -> Interactive Brokers -> Settings, make sure that the option 'Simultaneous loading of historical data across all symbols/charts' is checked.
In QuoteManager logs, please check if you receive a pacing violation message from IB. If so, each near request is only processed every 10 minutes. This is a limitation imposed by IB.

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Marina Pashkova
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Postby Marina Pashkova » 13 May 2008

Hi Tim and Bob,

Could you please contact us via LiveChat to demonstrate the problem through the remote connection?

Thank you.

johnyx2
Posts: 36
Joined: 18 Apr 2008

Postby johnyx2 » 14 May 2008

Hello there,

any resolution to the problem? comments?

Thanks
Johny

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Marina Pashkova
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Postby Marina Pashkova » 15 May 2008

Hi Johny,

So far only Tim has contacted us so I can only comment on the problem that he has reported.

In his case, slow chart plotting was due to the sheer number of ticks requested. It was simply too much data.

Johny, how many bars (approx) do you have in each of the workspaces? For now, it sounds like you are probably requesting a lot of data as well.

Regarding your question about the resolution in which the data is stored: it is stored as ticks, minutes, or days. Finer resolutions can then be used to plot larger resolutions (e.g. ticks to plot minutes etc), but not the other way round (minutes to plot ticks etc)

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TJ
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Postby TJ » 15 May 2008

Marina:

If I created a symbol with Yahoo freequote as data source... then I switch to IB.
Does MC create another database for the symbol ?

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Marina Pashkova
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Postby Marina Pashkova » 16 May 2008

Hi TJ,

Each symbol is uniquely indentified by it's name, data provider, category and exchange. The data downloaded for this unique symbol (defined by the parameters above) is associated with this symbol only.

I hope this answers your question.

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TJ
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Postby TJ » 16 May 2008

thx !


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