MT4 & Windows optimization

Can anyone please share some tips on optimizing the MT4 platform/WindowsXP? Currently my platform is freezing every few minutes for a few seconds at a time (hourglass cursor, screen stops redrawing). No errors in the Journal tab. I currently have 9 windows open (3 pairs & 3 TFs).

Please feel free to post tips or links. Such as:
- Other apps that should NOT run in the background
- Memory optimization
- Windows XP app that might show what programs are hogging the CPU during freezes?
- Anything else helpful

My broker (ATC/FXCM) recommends:
1. in Tools/Options/Charts set Max Bars in history to ~25000
& Max bars in chart to 10% of that (~2500)
These can be increased if using less charts.

2. Switching btwn multiple open chart windows is better than switching btwn TFs on 1 chart.


additionally-
Tips/links on ORDER ENTRY for manual traders. Anything easier than the completely manual way I am currently doing it would be appreciated. E.g., is there a way to move SL / TP lines with the mouse instead ? obviously I am starting from scratch here so all advice to help streamline my workflow is appreciated.

Thanks to everyone
Mark

Couple things to note:

1) What are the specs of your computer? (Processor, RAM, etc).
2) Look in task manager (Ctrl + Alt + delete). How many processes are running? How much of the available CPU/RAM is being used?

hi RR
even when i exit every running application that i can manage to quit, i still get random little freeze ups. however if i use only 1 chart with my desired template (just a few indicators) then there are no problems. using say 4+ charts then i start to get little lockups.

i can't see any correlation to hard drive usage, ram usage or other apps. it's like MT4 needs to take a random breather once in a while.

MT4 has memory leaks, I restart my MT4 platforms every weekend.

When a computer runs out of usable ram, it writes ram data to the hard disk, turning your hard disk into an extension of the existing ram. Problem is the hard disk is far slower than ram and thus the freezeups.

Check the number of bars you're running on each chart you open. I suspect you don't need all 250,000

hi RR

i'm pretty famil with how windows works but i would love to be able to tell if and exactly when MT4 is using the swapfile. i suspect it's not. this machine is an intel i7 <1yr new, high end for audio production, 3GB ram, and closing all other apps doesn't seem to help. :/

i'm told that increasing the priority for Terminal.exe in Task manager actually may cause problems, rather than help. so i haven't done that.

if there was a utility that could tell me what is happening during these little freezeups, that would be invaluable.

thanks RR

First off, 3GB ram for an i7? Seriously? I would think 6-8gb minimum. All my MT4 systems are running on 4GB machines.

As for determining when a paging file is being used, you could try this: http://www.theeldergeek.com/paging_f...monitoring.htm it's not app-specific and I suspect that's not possible.

As for what's happening during the freeze-ups, only way I can think of is task manager's 'processes' tab. I watch memory consumption levels there.

i suppose i'd need to upgrade to Win7, i've just always preferred XP (3GB limit) also prefer not messing up my world with microsoft 'upgrades' perhaps an outdated concept these days?

Wouldn't make much of a difference until MT4 becomes 64-bit. But I believe max RAM for 32-bit apps is 4GB. So perhaps that could help you, and since Microsoft isn't supporting XP anymore, perhaps it's a good idea to upgrade to windows 7

thanks RR i'm going to look into Win7

i used to run mt4 perfectly fine on an ancient machine with 1 or 2 gig ram (cant remember). if you are running on a relatively new machine and you are getting these sketchy freezes then to me all signs point to a dodgy process stealing your processor... ie. a virus, or something behaving badly like nortons or adaware services

if you can watch a dvd and youtube without getting the freezes then perhaps it's something else then.

but seriously, something is wrong and i doubt it's mt4. it doesn't need to refresh 30fps or calculate quantum physics. sure it needs to interpret mql, but fck me big deal... back in the days of dos BASIC code was usually run as an interpreted language in its entirety, so it's not like mql should be causing any problems unless you are doing some serious loops in an indi or ea.

yeah that all makes sense. not like i'm running tons of indicators even. and i DO have trouble streaming video, choppy playback. i will try to find what background app/service could be causing the problem.

eset nod32
sygate firewall
and a ton of other littler things

thanks nubcake

yup yup... maybe look into hijackthis