skip identical ticks

Questions about MultiCharts and user contributed studies.
janus
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skip identical ticks

Postby janus » 11 Feb 2012

Please confirm what "skip identical ticks" does. I'm assuming it means if the volume changes but the price is the same then the indicator is not recalculated even though "update on every tick" is checked. Is this correct or is there something more to it?

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Henry MultiСharts
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Re: skip identical ticks

Postby Henry MultiСharts » 13 Feb 2012

Hello Janus,

Your understanding is correct. Volume change does not trigger the recalculation.
Skip Identical Ticks feature allows MultiCharts to skip calculations on ticks with identical price in real-time. Many ticks in a second have the same price, but it only makes sense for indicators to recalculate when price changes. This option significantly lowers CPU usage and increases processing speed in real-time calculations.

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ABC
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Re: skip identical ticks

Postby ABC » 13 Feb 2012

Henry,

it would be great and useful if this can be switched off for indicators by default in PL Editor, like it's possible with "Update on every tick" or "Same as symbol" as for some indicators every tick is needed.
Currently it seems that if you uncheck this box in Format Study on a chart and check "Use as Default" the setting is saved, which is good. But making it consistent with "Update on every tick" by adding it to PL Editor Properties would be even better.
The same should probably be done for "Realtime-history matching." or is there a useful purpose why you can't uncheck them in PL Editor indicator properties already?

Regards,
ABC

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TJ
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Re: skip identical ticks

Postby TJ » 13 Feb 2012

I have a number of indicators that are volume (tick) dependent. ie. I need a new calculation even if the price did not change.

eg. if current bar's volume exceeded the previous bar's volume, I would enter a trade. If the volume increased but no calculation is made, my signal would not have triggered. And I would miss a trade !!!

PLEASE do not implement surprises that people are not expecting.
As ABC noted above, please make this option consistent throughout MultiCharts.



ps. With today's inexpensive and powerful computers, I do not see any need (or reasons) to skip any calculations. If a user's computer is overloaded, I am sure he can activate this option. There is no need to take down the whole ship by default.

janus
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Re: skip identical ticks

Postby janus » 13 Feb 2012

PLEASE do not implement surprises that people are not expecting.
As ABC noted above, please make this option consistent throughout MultiCharts.

ps. With today's inexpensive and powerful computers, I do not see any need (or reasons) to skip any calculations. If a user's computer is overloaded, I am sure he can activate this option. There is no need to take down the whole ship by default.
I agree 100%. I'm afraid MC made a big mistake this time. If they actually thought about it, the default behaviour is totally useless for many situations where one is interested in intrabar analysis and order execution using multiple studies. For example, I use global variables a lot and if a study only runs once in an interval because the price doesn't change then there's a high risk that other studies will not pick up updated global variables set by the that study until the next interval, by which time it's too late. MC can now save face by adding a feature as requested by others that allows the action to be switched on or off from within a study, as well as change the default setting to "off". Come on MC, listen to your users, they know what they talking about when it comes to trading.

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Re: skip identical ticks

Postby bowlesj3 » 13 Feb 2012

Yes it should be an option. In my case I only use price and not volume but some (maybe even most) will need it. So the default probably should be the other way even though some will want to skip the extra calcs as I would.

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Re: skip identical ticks

Postby janus » 13 Feb 2012

Yes it should be an option. In my case I only use price and not volume but some (maybe even most) will need it. So the default probably should be the other way even though some will want to skip the extra calcs as I would.
Agree too. What is really odd is why would MC do this in the first place after all these years when such a feature was not needed, especially now that we have much faster computers? Very odd indeed.

We deserve an explanation from MC.

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Re: skip identical ticks

Postby bowlesj3 » 13 Feb 2012

If may have been the missing ticks problem that tripped the idea in my head. I had mentioned it would not be that bad an idea (AS AN OPTION) to have the program skip executions if the price had not changed since some traders use price action alone. I think I had suggested that it should be done in such a way that the EL code could invoke it in every fast markets where the studies/indicators were falling behind (I have noticed this myself and to me it is kind of obvious that we can get this if we just keep giving MC more and more stuff to do thinking there is no limit and thinking that we never have fast markets). I think I had suggested that MC somehow have a way to detect this slow down due to fast markets (and excessive code relative to that) and to provide some sort of reserve word or something so that the EL code could decide to use this method to skip over ticks when it was falling behind. It was an old thread which maybe I can find but I never did formalize it into the bug tracker. I guess I figured it would not get a huge a mount of votes. I just remembered that I had also mentioned that it would be very useful if MC could provide an audit trail somehow (almost like a trace) such that when a tick came in we could see what studies were executed against that tick and what ones were causing a delay. I am not sure how such an idea would work in multi-thread (or even single-thread) but it is an idea that could be useful if it was done correctly (again as an option we could switch on for debugging purposes during faster markets possibly).

It just occurred to me. I thought I read in one of the releases that MC was changed to never miss a tick. I guess I missed the note about this (opposite change).

As far as skipping extra calcs, in a normal market I use that new command to execute a lot of studies a minimum of every second (so I can get the info back from the GVs mostly).

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Re: skip identical ticks

Postby Nick » 21 Feb 2012

Henry,

it would be great and useful if this can be switched off for indicators by default in PL Editor, like it's possible with "Update on every tick" or "Same as symbol" as for some indicators every tick is needed.
Currently it seems that if you uncheck this box in Format Study on a chart and check "Use as Default" the setting is saved, which is good. But making it consistent with "Update on every tick" by adding it to PL Editor Properties would be even better.
The same should probably be done for "Realtime-history matching." or is there a useful purpose why you can't uncheck them in PL Editor indicator properties already?

Regards,
ABC
The default value should also be 'off'. Maintaining backwards compatibility should always be number one priority.

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Dave Masalov
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Re: skip identical ticks

Postby Dave Masalov » 21 Feb 2012

Dear Users,

We close this thread because this subject has been discussed already. We believe that it should be implemented as it is now so the majority of users can benefit. The option will be added to PowerLanguage Editor.


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