Time factor in Playback not working correctly after upgrade from 8.0.23.2 to 8.0.24.2

[robertlaub]

I upgraded yesterday from 8.0.23.2 to 8.0.24.2, the latest release. The time multiplier in the Playback window is not working correctly now. Previously it was. In the old release when I set the factor to 50x it would finish a 5 minute bar very quickly as you would suspect. Now in the new release it does not. The time advances by 3-4 seconds and then will advance by x seconds (where x is much less than 50) and the value of x will jump around but is not consistently increasing. Besides at 50x it should be increasing by around 50 seconds for each 1 second of real time from the start.

How do I back out the current release 8.0.24.2 (the one I currently installed) and go back to 8.0.23.2? The functionality of this playback feature is that important to me.

[NinjaTrader_Manfred]

Hello robertlaub,

Thank you very much for your post.

The playback speed should not have changed between these two versions. However, it's important to understand that the speed will always only be as fast as the charts allow.

That means, even if it's set to 50x; if the data needs to be charted on complicated volume profile charts, it might run significantly slower and would only feed new data to the chart if the old one has been processed.

As such, my first suggestion would be to limit the open charts and ensure only the necessary calculations have to take place.

Should this not resolve the discrepancy, please send me your log & trace files, I can then best assist further.

The easiest way to send us these files is through the platform directly.

You can do this by clicking on Help > Email Support.

Please leave "log and trace files" selected and add the following note to your email, this ensures we can quickly associate it with this post:

ATTN Manfred 3067523

Thank you in advance!

[robertlaub]

I just did what you requested.
I am using the same charts in both releases so I doubt the problem is the complexity of the charts.

You failed to answer my question about backing out the new release and reverting to the prior release.

Thanks.

[NinjaTrader_Manfred]

After analyzing the workspace itself, we were able to track the issue down to a third-party indicator that took longer to calculate than the rest of the indicators.

The way NinjaTrader behaves during playback, is that it will feed the chart and indicators with data as fast as they allow, but not faster than the set time factor.

That means if set to 50x, it would not run faster than 50x but might run slower, e.g. if an indicator takes longer than 1 second to calculate 50 seconds of movement.

The easiest way to track down an indicator that uses more performance than any other is to use NinjaTrader's Utilization Monitor. This will, in milliseconds, record how much processing time each chart type, indicator, or drawing object uses.

To open this window, please click on New > NinjaScript Output, then right-click the window and select the "NinjaScript Utilization Monitor".

As long as this window is open, it will record how much processing time each item on the chart uses (1,000 ms = 1 second).

To give you an example, I've created several complex order flow charts and kept the window open for two minutes:



What this tells us is, that during 2 minutes, the Volumetric Chart Style took 20 seconds of procession power, while everything else combined was negligible.

If this was the result of running a 50x playback, it should easily run at this speed and should never slow down.

Should it show higher numbers though, our suggestion would be to take a look at our Performance Tips HelpGuide (linked below). Especially the "calculate on" setting will greatly affect how much performance is being used in this regard.

https://ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt8/performance_tips2.htm

While downgrading is always theoretically possible, we generally don't like recommending it, as it will not solve but only delay the underlying issue.

If an upgrade then becomes mandatory later on, e.g. because your provider would no longer support the connection otherwise, it would only reintroduce the issue.

Should you ever come across an issue that you suspect requires a downgrade to resolve, never hesitate to reach out to us. We're always happy to analyze the platform's behavior and assist in resolving any issues, may they be performance-related or not!