Is NT7 multi-threaded?

[molecool]

I am loading some pretty complex strategies that require an additional TICK series for execution and my system gets bogged down. Well, it's a monster of a machine:

http://screencast.com/t/f3R6bw8Vf6w

It's got 2 quad-core processors and 48GB of RAM.

As you can see I've got processing power to spare while NT7 is only using one piddly core. Is there any way to improve this situation?

UPDATE: It seems that it uses several cores during data loading:

http://screencast.com/t/PJpHDG7sh

But when it starts crunching the actual strategy entries it falls back to one core.

Thanks,

Molecool

[NinjaTrader_Matthew]

Hello Mole,

Thanks for the screen shots.

The Core of NinjaTrader is multi-threaded in several aspects, however your charts and NinjaScript objects are limited to only one processing core.

This means that your strategy will be restricted in terms of the amount of processing power your PC has.

We're looking forward to complete multi-threaded support in the next major release.

In terms of NinjaTrader 7, the only way to improve the load time is to reduce the number of calculations being made such as disabling other indicators or strategies that you do not need to run during this time. You may also consider lowering the number of 'days to load'

[molecool]

Hello Mole,

Thanks for the screen shots.

The Core of NinjaTrader is multi-threaded in several aspects, however your charts and NinjaScript objects are limited to only one processing core.

This means that your strategy will be restricted in terms of the amount of processing power your PC has.

We're looking forward to complete multi-threaded support in the next major release.

In terms of NinjaTrader 7, the only way to improve the load time is to reduce the number of calculations being made such as disabling other indicators or strategies that you do not need to run during this time. You may also consider lowering the number of 'days to load'

I'm actually doing all that already but since NT7 requires tick data it crawls after a about two weeks of data. I'm cutting off executions within a bar limit of about 50 but that's based on the 360-min chart I'm running it against.

FYI - there is nothing else running and this is a monster of a machine - enterprise level server. It should fly through loading a strategy - even if it was purely tick based.

When you talk about 'major release' - are we talking about NT8? Or will NT7 be updated to true multi-tasking? In any case - when can we expect that major release?

[NinjaTrader_Matthew]

It would be NT8. The NinjaTrader 7 core could not accommodate this change. We do not have an ETA on the next major release at this time.

[paulg]

It would be NT8. The NinjaTrader 7 core could not accommodate this change. We do not have an ETA on the next major release at this time.

Six months later, you have an ETA about NT 8?

I'm planning to shift to another front end if this real multi-thread feature is still a bottleneck in charting and Ninjascript execution after all these years.

It's incredible that Ninja on one side is able to fully saturate one fast core (I mean 4.x Ghz i7 architecture) and on the other side all the other cores (physical or virtual) are being wasted during charting and indicators plottings, as it happens during realtime fast markets.

Thank you
Paul

[NinjaTrader_Matthew]

Hi Paul,

We still do not have an ETA on when this will be released. If you'd like, you can email me at support[at]ninjatrader[dot]com and I can have you added to a list to be notified when the beta version is available.

[heikenashi]

Also seemed to be my problem. Unfortunate.

[paulg]

I have just discovered (during a disappointing NFP report) that NT7 works better in fast markets disabling Hyper Threading from BIOS.

Not sure whether this is an universal behavior; I'm only talking about Ninjascript executions and charting. It could be different for backtesting purposes where multiple cores are actually used.

This is an observation, just on my trading rig running XP Pro x64, 8 Gb RAM, i7.
Windows 7 or 8 could have different and more efficient HT management that creates less overhead for the software.

So if you have a CPU supporting that feature, try to disable it (from motherboard BIOS) and use only the physical cores. It's my understanding that when the HT is enabled, all cores become virtual under Windows from a software standpoint.

Any further feedback from other users is welcome.

[Hammerhorn]

Building a new rig and wanting to know if NT8 will support hyper threading. No reason to pay the extra bucks for an i7 if you are going to disable HT.

[paulg]

Building a new rig and wanting to know if NT8 will support hyper threading. No reason to pay the extra bucks for an i7 if you are going to disable HT.

You should ask whether NT8 will support 'multi-threading' on charting and scripting further to backtesting tasks.
The the reply is yes: http://www.ninjatrader.com/support/f...45&postcount=4

http://www.ninjatrader.com/support/forum/showpost.php?p=339240&postcount=2

i7 will provide you typically the physical cores provided by the CPU itself (4, 6...); but if the HT is enabled in the motherboard BIOS, your Windows 7/8 / XP will manage them as (8...12...virtual cores).
HT is about how the OS sees and manages the cores, not how NT8 works using those physical (HT disabled) or virtual cores (with HT enabled).
You can read my experience in a previous post where I discovered that NT7 is faster using physical cores only. And NT7 anyway will use only 1 core at max for charting/scripts, notwithstanding the HT is enabled or not. NT8 will be multi-threading so it will use those available cores with or w/o HT.

[Sinks]

Paul did you have any luck with the freezing issue by disabling HT on your system

[paulg]

I have nothing to add in this regard vs what I wrote previously: it's faster but not perfect. Probably under XP Pro x64 the virtualization of the physical cores is less efficient vs Win 7 or 8 so it's more noticeable when you disable HT.

[Sinks]

I have nothing to add in this regard vs what I wrote previously: it's faster but not perfect. Probably under XP Pro x64 is the virtualization of the physical cores is less efficient vs Win 7 or 8 so it's more noticeable when you disable HT.

Thanks Paul........I disabled HT on my i7 4770 and could not see any difference, you can also disable multi core also on the processor.....but I can't see that would help. So I will just have to wait for new version.