Important Poll: Everyone Please Respond

[mwave]

I think option would be good idea.

For true reslult of poll, you should ask this question to only Day trader not everybody. LongTerm trader does not care about seconds.

mwave

[JS999]

I think option would be good idea.

For true reslult of poll, you should ask this question to only Day trader not everybody. LongTerm trader does not care about seconds.

mwave

Yes, that was a mistake in the way I did the poll... that's why I think we have so many responses that say they don't care. If you assume that at least 70-80% of those "don't care" people are longer-term traders, that essentially means that all the rest of the people are day traders who want the ability to set this refresh rate individually per chart. If I had limited the poll to only daytraders, I suspect we would have gotten a percentage that was at least 80-90% in favor of changing this.

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

if (DateTime.Now > lastRefresh.AddMilliseconds(refreshDelay))
{
ChartControl.Refresh();
lastRefresh = DateTime.Now;
}

Obviously this is beyond what we provide support, but just a word of warning (again):
- .Refresh() is a forced repaint and easily could lock up your NT in no time
- .Invalidate() is like "repaint next time as you have time to process events" and the recommended way

[JS999]

Obviously this is beyond what we provide support, but just a word of warning (again):
- .Refresh() is a forced repaint and easily could lock up your NT in no time
- .Invalidate() is like "repaint next time as you have time to process events" and the recommended way

I did some searching for ChartControl on the net to get more info, but I couldn't find much on it... I'm assuming that this is a .NET component, correct?

Anyways, I'm still a little unclear on what you mean by a "forced repaint" locking up NT. If I space it out so that it occurs only once every 100 ms, would that still lock up the program (and if so, why?). Or are you saying that it might only lock up if I call it on every tick inside OnMarketData()?

As for Invalidate(), what exactly does "next time as you have time to process events" translate to in the context of your code? That could mean a lot of things. If I ask it to Invalidate() and it comes back 20 ms later, that's fine. If it comes back 300 ms later, that's not fine. What else is going on in your code that would take higher priority, and in your opinion, what might the typical delay be (if you know)?

(It sounds like this might not be the easy solution that I thought, which makes it even more critical that you put the functionality back in for us to modify the refresh on our charts.)

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

Please see below: we don't provide support for that. This was just some hints in case you consider going down this avenue. MS should have loads of online documentation regarding .Refresh() and .Invalidate().

[JS999]

Please see below: we don't provide support for that. This was just some hints in case you consider going down this avenue. MS should have loads of online documentation regarding .Refresh() and .Invalidate().

Great, I will check that out. In the meantime, why don't you get your boss to look up about 2 inches on this page and see that pretty much most of the daytraders on this site are asking him to put that refresh functionality back into the code? I suspect that the only people who don't care are the ones holding trades for hours on end. Don't make me start another poll just to prove to you that 80-90% of daytraders hate this decision that you guys made. Thanks.

[Tremblinghandtrader]

Oh dear!! You already cannot use the NT DOM for fast instruments like HSI & CL because of the 5 price level restriction. Now this to the charts.

How is this for a well thought out improvement. I have 23 charts open.
2 charts set @ .1 sec update = 20 per sec
10 charts set @ .5 sec update = 20 per sec
11 charts set @ 1 sec update = 11 per sec
Total 51 updates per sec

With this “update” my CPU is saved a grand total of 5 refreshes per sec (23*2 per sec = 46) but I lose my fast charts!! Some great thought gone into this one. To be honest if I had problems with the CPU not handling it the first thing I would choose would be to increase the slower charts update rate, which I would now not be able to do with this change or reduce the amount of charts. Not slow down the two fast charts I need.

Seems like the solution of customizing the update rate is the better one for everyone. Those that have performance issues and those that spend a few measly dollars on real equipment (i.e. traders)

[mjc4118]

You're right, you are going to get your head chopped off. What the hell are you talking about? Everything you said is complete nonsense, given that they already had this feature in 6.5 and took it out.

JS. On a personal level, I suggest that plain common decency towards others would go a lot further towards rallying people in support of your opinion/cause. Simply blasting and attacking others because you are irritated and believe yourself to be right does very little for your cause. It does however detract from your effort to persuade others to your point of view and just generally make us all thankful that we are not married to you.

Ray... Let me understand this correctly. We are really talking about THREE seperate issues here. 1) How fast is Plot data/Indicator historical bars/candles recalculated and redrawn on Charts and 2) how fast is Updated price data displayed on the chart. 3) How fast is Time and Sales data displayed and should I be able to have this set to "tick" or hard coded based on time.

If the refresh/redraw only affects the historical data and indicator calculations and historical candles then I believe it does not make any difference if it is 250 ms 500 ms or user adjustable. It becomes a mute point as long as it occurs relatively frequently. The brain can only process so fast anyway. Watching the current charts in multiple fast markets on 89 tick charts today the charts themselves seemed pretty fine.

However. Price data. Current price data does/can change on every tick and I can see where users should be able to see that data as it becomes available and even update the last candle being drawn and the price information on the chart without triggering a redraw/refresh of the entire chart. The price values on the chart should reflect as close to price as physical possible at all times if the user requires it. This includes the last candle / bar close and price pointers, bid and ask. I have not looked under the hood of NT7 but I would seem to me that this would be more than reasonable.

In Time and Sales window ... the "tape" as they call it. You should be able to display this on every tick. This is streaming data. Let it stream. To limit this is truly beleive is wrong. On the charts you can argue it either way for either of the 2 points concerning them...but I think in time and sales you really need to let the option of "by tick" as you had in 6.5"

[NinjaTrader_Ray]

- All ticks are processed and distributed to all subscribing objects immediately and no ticks are dropped (thus calculations are done per tick where needed with the exception that OnBarUpdate() may only be called once per bar should a user define this setting)
- The UI (Plot) routine of the chart is now fixed to timer driven twice per second thus its a display issue
- You may argue that having a visual update every tick is better than having it twice per second however, what you have to realize is that by doing so, you make the application work expontentially harder and can self impose some delay on your visual update and thus you actually have self imposed lag (speaking during high volatile times) where updating twice per second is just exponentially more efficient and gets you the visual updates faster (this is purely mathematical reality)
- This high level explanation is just a generic point, there are many factors that influence this also such as hardware, what objects you are running in your workspace
- I am not opposed to provding some flexibility for everyone however and I am paying close attention to everyones comments.

[r2kTrader]

Lonely,

Do you hear yourself? THEY ARE PUTTING UP A POLL TO GIVE US THE OPTION TO HAVE A SAY!

Calm down. I can get as frustrated as the next person, but the whole purpose of this thread was to give us a say. And 1500.00 is nothing for a package like this. You act like you did them a favor. You will drop 1500.00 in less than a year with TradeStation (not even on the same level at NT). Go get a TradeStation Lifetime license. Oh, and don't forget that you can only use it with TradeStation and not multiple brokers.

Cast your vote and let your voice be heard.


Thanks for hearing me out,

Haven't read through this whole thread, but let me chime in. I paid about FIFTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS for a multibroker license, and NinjaTrader wants to limit my chart refresh capabilities?!

It sounds to me like the software engineers are driving the process. In fact, it should be traders driving the process.

Whether anyone here cares about the refresh rate or not, that isn't the issue. The capability should be flexible -- like any charting platform that advertises itself to be a professional grade platform. 500ms is waaaay too long for some traders. In fact, why even use a DOM if your refresh is 500ms? WHY? It doesn't make any sense.

So go tell the software engineers to get back to work and do it right. Don't let them drive the process. NinjaTrader does not exist as a playground for a bunch of code-geeks. It is for traders. Code geeks are paid by traders to find solutions so that TRADERS can make money, not limit trading functionality.

This is a design FAIL.

NinjaTrader is skating on thin ice with me. V6.5 is buggy, takes way to long to load, and as of now I can't even get an accurate PnL on both of my trading accounts. Ninja tech support says: "Get flat, then repair your database." Well, I have some long term positions. Do I just "get flat" so that I can get NT to work properly? (Tells me a code geek, again, is driving the process, instead of a trader.) And part of the reason I wanted Ninja was for the PnL metrics. Repairing the DB would erase my entire trade history. So what the hell am I using this software for?

Good question. And now I'm hearing that NT7 may only allow my charts to refresh every 500ms.

Good one, guys. Really.

[JS999]

JS. On a personal level, I suggest that plain common decency towards others would go a lot further towards rallying people in support of your opinion/cause. Simply blasting and attacking others because you are irritated and believe yourself to be right does very little for your cause. It does however detract from your effort to persuade others to your point of view and just generally make us all thankful that we are not married to you.

You are right, I should not have taken out my frustration yesterday at the other member, and for that I apologize. My irritation stems from the fact that NinjaTrader felt that they had the right to make this very serious and game-altering change without ever consulting us, and in fact are still giving us the "we'll think about it" routine even now. I should never have had to waste my time and start a poll about this in the first place, because this should have never been taken out of the software. There is nothing for them to think about any more... enough people have voted in this poll already, and the results are exceedingly clear at the top of this page.

[darthtrader]

The brain can only process so fast anyway.

I think this is really getting to the heart of the issue...Its less an issue of having every tick print at the exact time as it is that the brain can process 500 milliseconds without a problem. While this might sound absurd since we are not use to dealing with milliseconds in everyday life, a simple example is to look at the seconds display on a digital clock. As the second hand ticks its easy to say outloud ".5 .5"..Not only is it trivial to process 500 ms, you can actually vocalize it. Its hardly a long time for the brain, its quite slow actually.
As far as time and sales I would always turn the option off in 6.5 and want to see as much as possible. What you lose with having things display at 500 milliseconds is the blasts on the tape. The fact that sometimes prints will blast on the tape faster than you can comprehend them flying by is itself very valueable information. If you have no need for this then great, its just hard to understand what the point of losing functionality in an upgrade is for those that do.

I guess I've come around to some degree also as far as the charts go since there will be work arounds as already shown here even if not supported. Time and sales though I would really like to see the old option brought back as I imagine most customers never even bothered to mess with the default but there is no work around for that as far as I know in 7.

Also, instead of people losing their mind over this, do remember this is a beta release..This kind of thing is exactly what a beta release is for.

[aslane]

I think the important point here, is there are multiple classes of traders using NT. Many just use the tool and canned indicators and will like the new faster performance. Then there are those of us that tune their indicators to optimize them for updates etc to get the most out of their computer. Some are trading longer term and dont need the updates, while others are trading short term and need to see a tick come in.

At the end of the day, the new default is fine, but the option has to be there to allow per tick updates.

[JS999]

I think the important point here, is there are multiple classes of traders using NT. Many just use the tool and canned indicators and will like the new faster performance. Then there are those of us that tune their indicators to optimize them for updates etc to get the most out of their computer. Some are trading longer term and dont need the updates, while others are trading short term and need to see a tick come in.

At the end of the day, the new default is fine, but the option has to be there to allow per tick updates.

Not only that, but we also need to be able to adjust longer term charts to a slower update if we want to. Updating daily charts at 0.5 seconds is a pointless waste of precious CPU resources in many cases.

[aslane]

Not only that, but we also need to be able to adjust longer term charts to a slower update if we want to. Updating daily charts at 0.5 seconds is a pointless waste of precious CPU resources in many cases.

True, but many of those types of charts should really be set to update on bar close.