Pre-Computer Purchase Question: NT7 using IB & DTN.IQFeed works on 64-bit Windows 7?

[ChiTrader2000]

Hello,

I am about to purchase a computer with 64-bit Windows 7 Professional for the main purpose of backtesting and live trading with NinjaTrader7, using Interactive Brokers and DTN IQFeed.

Is 64-bit Windows 7 Professional a good choice for what I am trying to do, or can anybody see any problems with my plan?

Thank you very much in advance!

ChiTrader2000

[kdoren]

I use 64-bit Windows 7 (Ultimate) with Interactive Brokers and IQFeed. I'm using an Intel Core I7 CPU with 12GB of RAM. It sings.

Windows 7 64-bit is an excellent choice, Microsoft finally got it right. Don't even think about using anything else.

The NT7 optimizer really uses all 8 of my CPUs (4 hyper-threaded cores).

Interactive Brokers TWS works fine in that environment. NT7 doesn't do any throttling of historical data requests to IB, so you can't really use IB as your historical data provider because you will hit pacing violations with IB.

IQFeed works in 64-bit using their latest driver. There are still some bugs relating to loading historical data, in the IQfeed driver and/or the NT7 interface to it. NT7 frequently requests loading of historical data even when the data has been requested previously, and is already stored locally. And sometimes loading of historical data fails with an error message, which is especially irritating if it didn't need to load the data in the first place.

When backtesting, I've resorted to using the Historical Data Manager to download data for the instruments I need (I do portfolio-level testing & optimzation of some strategies on dozens of instruments). When I get downloading errors I reload the instrument that failed. Then I disconnect IQFeed before running my optimization.

If/when the IQFeed bugs get fixed, you'll be very happy with that setup.

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

>> And sometimes loading of historical data fails with an error message, which is especially irritating if it didn't need to load the data in the first place.
Would you have a reproducible scenario based on NT7B13? Thanks

[kdoren]

I'm still running NT7B12; I'm stable on B12, in the middle of some development, and the flurry of problem reports on B13 made me want to stay on B12 for the time being.

I don't know how reproducible it is, but if you go into Historical Data Manager, select an instrument list (Dow30 would probably do) and ask it to download 2 years of 1-minute and daily data, it will probably generate an error somewhere in the process.

I believe this is separate from the problem of making unnecessary download requests. This happens even when using IB as the historical data provider. I think you might be able to reproduce if you connect to IB, then run the strategy analyer with 1-minute bars on a list of stocks, where you know that all of the historical data is locally stored (download from IQFeed?). If you run the strategy while connected to IB, you will hit pacing violations, which can only happen if NT7 is making excessive data requests.

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

Not exactly sure what you are referring to. Here is what I just tried using NT7B13:
- blank DB
- connect DTN
- Historical data manager->select DOW 30, check Day and Minute and download since 1st of April 2008

-> worked no problem as expected, all data downloaded, no errors, no error log

Next:
- disconnect from DTN
- connect to IB live account
- strategy analyser
- select Dow30
- backtest SampleMaCrossOver on 1 minute series: from 1st of April 2008 to 7th of April 2010

-> worked as expected, no download made from IB, no pacing violation

Also: Pacing violations are a limitation of IB. Not sure why you think this would be NT's issue.

[kdoren]

Thanks for checking, I'll see if I can create a reproducible scenario under B13. I'm running 64-bit Windows 7, are you also running 64-bit?

I definitely sometimes get errors when using the Historical Data Manager to download a lot of data under B12.

For the unnecessary reload issue, it might be that some of the instruments I'm testing have missing bars, or other gaps in the data that cause NT7 to initiate a reload. I have seen cases where my database had gaps in the data; I don't know what caused that but NT7 stored the data that way without any warning.

I understand that pacing violations are an IB issue, but if the reason I have a pacing violation is that NT7 is doing unnecessary downloads, then it's an NT7 issue.

A feature request for the NT7 wish list is to have NT7 throttle the data requests to IB to prevent pacing violations. I'd rather have historical downloads pause for a while than throw errors.

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

I tried 32bit NT on 64bit Win7, but this makes no difference as the code is the same for 32bit and 64bit NT.

>> A feature request for the NT7 wish list is to have NT7 throttle the data requests to IB to prevent pacing violations.
This unlikely will happen, since then people start complaining "why are IB data requests so slow". Rather have the problem where is origins from which is an IB limitation.

Also: the documentation holds a section like "when and why does NT load historical data". Please make sure you are aware of that.

[ChiTrader2000]

kdoren,

Thank you very much for the specific information. It was the exact answer I was looking for (and hoping for).

I also emailed the DTN IQFeed team with the same question, and they said the same thing you did regarding the compatibility of IQFeed with Windows 7 64-bit editions.

I am also glad to hear that all 8 of your cores are being well-used by NT7. I have a quad-core at work on which my NT7 backtests use all 4 cores beautifully.

Thanks again!

ChiTrader2000

[ChiTrader2000]

Another Pre-Computer Purchase Question: NT7 on Windows Server 2008 R2?

Hello,

Small change of plans from my original post to this thread: I am now trying to decide between a Dell Precision with 64-bit Windows 7 Professional or a Dell PowerEdge T610 with Windows Server 2008 R2 (which is 64-bit).

The main purpose of the computer will be backtesting and live trading with NinjaTrader7, using Interactive Brokers and DTN IQFeed.

Is 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2 a good choice for what I am trying to do, or can anybody see any problems with my plan?

Thank you very much in advance!

ChiTrader2000

[kdoren]

I've never used Server 2008 but Windows 7 x64 is really good. Much better performance than Vista x64 on the same hardware.

I did find this thread which discusses the differences:

http://www.win2008workstation.com/fo...hp?f=21&t=1201

I don't see much advantage to Server 2008 for what you want to do, plus it costs a lot more and you'd be on your own if you run into problems ("unsupported"). I think your money would be better spent on faster hardware.

You'll probably be pleased with any hardware that uses the quad-core Nehalem architecture and fast triple-channel DDR3 DRAM (Core I7 and Xeon).

FYI I'm running a Core I7 920 overclocked to 3.6 GHz with 12GB DRAM.

[ChiTrader2000]

kdoren,

Thank you for the wise advice and the link to the excellent discussion about the differences.

I have decided to build by own computer and use Windows 7.

I will pour the extra money into hardware, to get a setup very similar to yours.

Thanks again for all the help. You have been very helpful.

ChiTrader2000

[kdoren]

Good luck, just be aware that if you build your own machine and especially if you overclock, you are on your own if you run into problems. I'm comfortable debugging such problems, but if you aren't you should consider finding a vendor who sells preconfigured overclocked machines. Stability is more important than speed; you can stability test with programs like "prime95", but even that's not perfect.

I've generally had good results, but my current machine caused me a lot of grief - it could run stress tests all day long but it would crash with a blue screen once a week, even when not overclocked. Turns out Corsair sold me some flaky memory. I wasn't sure what the problem was; it passed every test but still crashed once a week. Was it the motherboard? memory? power supply? I bought some Patriot memory that fixed the problem, then Corsair replaced my memory with "version 1.1" modules that worked OK. But the process was quite a pain, and not for the faint of heart.

FYI I highly recommend running mirrored hard disks (RAID 1), or RAID 5. Hard disks can and do fail, so it's cheap insurance and can improve performance also. I think most/all Intel motherboards support Intel Matrix Storage Manager, so the only cost is an extra drive or 2.

[ChiTrader2000]

kdoren,

Thank you very much for the advice and warnings. I will remember these things.

ChiTrader2000