VHands Trading Simulator

welll thanks for the responce but the state of the computer is definitly not a problem. I just reinstalled windows and the whole shebang so it works like its brand spankin new outa the box.

Sys info: P4 3.00g hyperthreading running XP

2 physical drives
4 logical drives
when idling terminal.exe uses a redonculous 215k of memory

ive tried running metatrader of every posible physical and partitioned drive to no avail. Also tried running it on a faster machine (2.6 dual core 2g ram) and a slower machine ( some cummy old laptop) with similar results. As soon as the indicator is added vhands idles. Even if i close down mt restart and start the Vhands it ticks for a few bars then stops......and freezes....same result on all machines with the only difference being the time it takes to load vhands.

with my limited programming knowledge it seems to idle as its tryin to update the offline file. Please advice further as this seems to be, at least in my eyes, an unpresedented backtesting technique.

Furthermore, i was wondering if others have tried the multiple timeframe setup and their results.

Regards, Piz

Yeah I'll second that request for a little feed back about peoples experiences, because without feed back I can only assume everyone else got MTF vhands up and running fine (and I never like to assume anything!!!)


Just a quick note on memory usage ... Yes I'm with you on this one Piz : 215Mb is obscene but its not out of the ordinary for Mt4. Mine runs fine using 244Mb (as i type) with peak mem usage at 286Mb. Ive seen it higher than this even when not running the strategy tester so despite its outrageous gluttony for memory this shouldnt be the cause of your problems.

Ok next round for Piz :

1st ... if you havent changed your virtual memory settings as described in the original tutorial then id suggest you do. I've let MTF vhands run in the background for an hour or so and MT4 has caused 35 million page faults (a page fault occurs when windows swaps memory out to the virtual memory stored on disk). This is extreme, obscene and tbh some what of a joke but my point is that with windows managing the size of your virtual memory file it may well get its knickers in a twist so I'd highly recommend you set the minimum and maximum sizes manually.

2nd .. it did occur to me that you might be running Norton system works ?!? I'm not here to bash a product or give you detailed advice on protecting your PC but Ive seen this product make a P4 run slower than a low end P3. As you can tell Im not a fan... If you are using it Id suggest turning everything off other than the basic firewall feature. Alternatively uninstall the whole thing and install a good (free) firewall - they are available.
(If you dont frequent Porn sites, try to obtain cracked software through Warez sites, and refrain from opening attachments on unsolicited emails then a basic firewall is all you really need)


3rd ... if you get as far as the 'skip to' stage make sure you use the global variable 'vhandspause' when using the 'skip to' feature otherwise Mt4 may appear to hang even though it is trundling (very slowly) through the history data.

4th ... make sure there are no other (old) vhandstrade windows open in the background. Even when you stop the strategy tester the vhands '(visual)' window remains open, and if you click the start button again then you will have two vhands '(visual)' window open. This doesnt cause problems on my machine but it isnt too healthy to have 'period converter' indicators on multiple vhands '(visual)' windows


OK if none the above help, then it maybe a corruption in one or more of your chart data files (.Hst) so we'll try the following

 

1. Open Mt4
2. Use Menu --> File --> open offline
3. Hover your mouse over any timeframe and note the folder name displayed in the popup hint window. this is where your history files are stored.
4. close the 'offline file' window
5. Close all chart windows
6. close mt4
7. using windows explorer locate and make a back up (copy /paste) of the history folder.

Consider getting downloading less history data at least until you get MTF working

1. 1. 1. open Mt4
      2. reset your "max bars in chart" & "max bars in history" options to say 200,000 (7 months 1 minute data approx)
      3. Close mt4

1. Delete all the ".hst" files in the history folder.
2. open mt4
3. open a GBPUSD chart - make it a 1minuite
4. make a cup of coffee (leave mt4 to do what it wants in the background for a few minutes)
5. close all chart windows
6. open the history center window select the GBPUSD 1 minute node and click the download button (as described in the original tutuorial)
7. open a GBPUSD chart window ... make it a 1min chart.
8. add the 'Vhistory' and 'vTerminal' indicators
9. make sure mt4 still responds
10. add the period converter indicator with settings 'periodmultiplier =1', 'forceofflinefileperiod = 2', 'thisactualperodmins = 1'
11. make sure mt4 still responds
12. save the chart template overwritting vhandstrade
13. close the chart window
14. open the offline file gbpusd,M2
15. check all the data is there
16. open gbpusd chart window - make it 1 minute
17. open the vhandstrade template on it
18. make sure mt4 still responds
19. close the 1 minute chart you should only have the M2 window open now.
20. close and restart mt4
21. open the strategey tester window
22. start vhands using the settings described in the tutorial- it should not hang
23. if it does hang try to close the MT4 application window ... if the X button doesnt work then kill the task using task manager
24. reopen mt4
25. start the strategy tester - it should not hang
26. if you are now running then you can start adding period converters to the M2 chart window as described in the tutorial

I hope this helps you. If its not done the trick then Im gonna really start struggling to think of what else it could be.

Creating MTF Vhands in this way is somewhat of a Hack but nevertheless if all the steps in the tutorials are followed then it should behave itself most of the time, and certainly has done so on my machine.

I'm still not sure why the period converter hangs occasionally when its on a 'strategy tester' window, especially when it is so reliable when added to any other type of chart window.
Unfortunately Mt4 indicators are not the easiest things to debug at the best of times, and since (in my experience at least) this is an intermittent problem I gave up trying to solve the glitch.

i had tried to download vhands but it seems impossible. Does anybody know how to get another link pls? Urgently.
Thanks

question about Vhands.

usually people says that the MT4 backtest is not reliable. Using a visual backtest like Vhands should'nt give the same results?

is a backtest with Vhands reliable?


thanks in advance.

Thanks so much for posting this awesome tool.

My question.

When you sit and watch a 5 min. chart and the movement is ticking back and forth, does this represent the real historic movement of the market?

Say the eur/usd is at 1.5400 then it ticks like this

00
01
00
01
02
01
00
01
02
03
04
03
02
03
04
05
06
05


Is this really how the market moved? Did it really go from 0 to 1 pip to o pip to one and then 2 pips and so on?

Or is all this just made up to represent what could have been hapening with the real tics during this 5 min. candle. But all that is really known is when it closed and opened, high and low, of the minut. Then the data is taken from that and just simulates what could have happened


The reason I ask is that it seems that you can tell when a 5 min candle is going to fizzle out.

If you are jumping back and forth between pips then it is probably close to fizzing.

Just by using this as an indicator of candle movement change I was able to make many right predictions.

Now if this is not representative of the true market behavior then my understanding of how the market moves is off.

Cause I will be waiting for it to tic up/down/up/down/up and it wont do that. It may just go sideways because what I have seen on the simulator is not accurate historic market movement.


Any help is greatly appreciated!


Mike Lewthaite


.

Hey Rangebound,

Thanks for putting this all together and sharing with the community!

I am able to get completely through the setup and make it work with one exception: When I do a "SKIP TO" I can no longer run Vhands with the time compression slider bar on full speed....it hangs every time on 30, 31 or 32. This makes for some slow going on higher TF's unless you can have those last few settings on the slider.

I've got a dual core 1.9Ghz w/ 2GB RAM with bare bones programs running. MT4 runs with about 380MB (insane!) RAM, but I've got over a GB left and before I do the SKIP function, I can run seven charts at full speed with no system slow-down. Based on what you've already said in previous posts, I think its a problem with the Period Converter and the "pause" function. That's always when the problem appears.

Thanks and I hope you can figure it out. MTF VHands is an awesome tool!

giraia_br : Backtesting Accuracy

It is often said that backtesting is unreliable, this is based mainly on the following premise : E.G. You might (manually) look at (static) historic charts and paper trade a 4 hour strategy, but in reailty you will find that a large proportion of the best moves occured during events such as NFP or interest rate news announcements. During these events it is highly UNLIKELY you would get filled at the levels that your 4 hour strategy would have you enter, and so any results would not be reliable.
Using tick data on the strategy tester is far closer to the real thing and as long as you dont cheat (ie use periods where you know (roughly) the swings and turns, or enter just before an NFP spike because you know its gonna go up) then your results can be considered much more reliable.

If I had to guess I'd say that the accuracy of the results from the 4hr example (above) might be as low as 20~30%, using the visual tick data you could possibly (and reasonably) expect accuracy as high as 80~90% though I would expect anywhere between 50~70% would be the norm.

However the following caveats apply ~

1) It is vital that you understand the differences in your mind set between live and demo trading. If you dont know what its like to be down 30 pips at $10 /pip (or whatever amount would start to make you squirm), or for that matter what its like to be positive to the same amount, then demo trading, in any form, is to all intents useless (as far as your finally profitability goes).

I cant stress this enough. Your live (real money) results will be significantly different to ANY demo trading. AND unless you can 'vhands' with the same mind set as you would live trading, then the difference will be MASSIVE. MM can only protect you so much. Only by having an extremely rigid strategy (Entry / SL & TP) will this element be circumvented.

Time is a killer also : It is one thing to use vhands to trade 3 days data over the course of a few of hours. IT IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT to trade the same period in realtime. It just wont happen for obvious reasons ... You need sleep, you will get bored, and you will get frustrated.

Demo trading, be it using historic charts, realtime, or Vhands style is all about boosting your confidence in your strategy, to enable you to click the button with real money. The actual results between demo and live WILL ALWAYS differ. But if you can consistently trade profitably with Vhands then you should be able to with real money.

2) consider the next paragraph also.


Pip Ventures : How accurate is the tic data?


As far as I know the tick data is reasonably (> 60%) accurate however the compression of time can show the intent in the market.

Imagine taking a single photo of a plant and being asked to draw the position of a leaf in 4 hours time. You'd get it wrong.
However if you took 1 picture every minute for 2 hours and then viewed them in sequence just like the timelapse video seen on a nature program, you would increase the accuracy of your prediction significantly.

In a similar way the time compression can give you more of an idea about the next direction the market will take.

You can limit this effect somewhat by slowing the speed, and/or, by using multiple timeframes - this will help take your focus away from a single bar as it forms, and consequently limit the inference you obtain from the way it has formed.

Pipskateer

Despite the little feedback It seems that its the fastest machines that cause this hanging problem most frequently, which hints that the problem is as I suspected.
Half the problem with debugging any code is being able to replicate the problem. Since you say it 'always' occurs on your machine I'll PM you some 'tweaked' versions of the period converter to see if it can be overcome.

Nice posting, rangebound. To add to it:

I am a money-losing trader - lost by naively trusting the claims of a correlation-trading ea. Ah well; I am sure I am not alone.

I have not yet made up these losses.

I have stopped losing and started to make up an infinitesimal part of the losses. Maybe, one day, I shall actually move back into profit; I have hopes.

What made the difference was: developing my own trading system and using it live on an IBFX mini account trading micro-lots. The great thing about micro-lots is that they are live trades, yet risk nothing of value at $0.01 a pip. For me, live trading is live trading and I hate losing.

I am not knocking vhands - far from it as I have used it to great benefit. It just doesn't replace live trading.

Pipskateer / pizdun

I cant seem to add an attachment to a PM at the moment so I've attached a debug version of MTFvhands here.

If either or both of you guys can try these out and post me some feed back via PM, I may be able to solve the problem.


(Unless you are are experiencing regular system hangs when using MTF Vhands, please dont download these files. With a little luck I'll post a final/stable version on this thread if and when the problems are solved - hopefully sooner rather than later)



TIA & Regards

Rangebound,

After our last PM, I'm wondering if you've yet determined a final version of Vhands MTF. I have some folks who I want to recommend this to, but should they use the Debug version you last posted or the one on your first post or just wait until you post a final?

I think I can get by using the debug version with both CPU's engaged, just gotta keep the speed off full throttle so it doesn't crash. Hopefully, Metaquotes will update MT4 to provide better dual CPU support some time soon.

Thanks for all your help with this!

Rangebound,

The following is a log of this morning's efforts to get this working. I have tried to be detailed enough for you to make some sense out of it. I dont think my computer is an issue here (I tried this on two computers) so I will not detail the configuration unless necessary. I have tried to run with a clean system without other apps or programs open.

Your procedure described after "So how do I use it?" thread #209:

vhands pause variable works as described except; after clicking "SkipTo" button, followed by clicking the play/pause button, the symbol on the play/pause button reverses. After resetting the variable back to zero, and clicking the play again, the symbol remains reversed and does not correct until the "stop" button is pushed.

You state: "You will use this same method to start vhands Trade every time." I presume by this that you refer to the procedure just discussed where the Global Variable vhandspause is changed from 0 to 1 and then back again to 0. Every single time that you start vhnads in multi chart mode? Wow! Note: this could introduce some confusion due to the play/pause symbol reversal discussed above.

In the procedure after the statement "So lets add one to vhands shall we???"
After adding the period convertor indicator to the vhands chart window, clicking the Stop button freezes MT4.

Next, I followed the procedure that begins: "If your MT4 app has hung at any point......" but the M2 (offline) chart has never been updated by the vhands chart and I think I am in some trouble here. By this I mean that as the vhands chart ticks along, the M2 chart is also supposed to do the same, updating tick by tick? This does not happen. The M2 chart is static.

I await further guidance, and I do appreciate the work that you are pouring into this effort.

seattlerust

Seattlerust.

Im not sure quite what you mean with the button reversing its icon ... It does change its icon to show the current action
(playing = '>>' Paused = '||')

You should be doing the following

 

1. Click start.
2. Make sure the chart is ticking (play button will be showing >>) then Pause it by clicking the normal play/pause button.(button will show || pause Icon)
3. Press F3 or use Menu --> TOOLS --> Global variables.
4. Change the value of "vhandspause" from 0 to 1 effectively "pausing" vhands.
5. close the Global Variables window.
6. make sure the "skip to" date is that date you want (2008.01.01) then Click "Skip to" button.
7. click the play / pause button ... ( button will show '>>')
8. wait for the data to be skipped.(watch the progress bar at the bottom)
9. When the chart is updated and ticking away again (at the new date) we need to "unpause" vhands so ....
10. Pause the strategy tester with the play / pause button. (button will show || )
11. Open the 'Global variables' window again (as detailed above ... F3 or Menu)
12. Change the "vhandspause" value from 1 back to 0 then close the variables window
13. Now click the play button. (button will show >>)

If this is different on your machine then I suggest you Re install MT4.

As for the M2 chart not updating Im guessing either you didnt save the vhandstrade template before the machine locked up or you failed to apply the correct settings to the period converter indicator, and or you havent checked (selected) the 'Allow Dll imports' option when you added the indicator.(this can be found on the 'Common' tab of the window you see when you add any new indicator to a chart)

Either way forget it. Download & install the new (glitch free) version of MTFvHands posted below. Follow the instructions carefully.

In the new (final) version the M2 file will be automatically created and updated by the EA so you dont need to add a period converter to the (visual) window at all.

Thanks To Pipskateer's feedback I'm confident that the hanging issues have been solved.

So I've included the new files in the attached zip. This file contains all files required by MTF Vhands and also the original documentation for the original version Vhands which includes some info on how to use the main funtionallity of Vhands

The updated setup guide for MTFvHands has also been included in the zip, and should be followed to the letter.

For those that have already the 1st version of MTF Vhands, and are confident tinkering around with MT4 The following changes should be noted. (When in doubt Re-Read the Guide)

 

1. The EA has been changed and renamed so to run you now need to install and select the new EA = "MTFvHandsTrade.mq4" The new EA has the period converter code embeded inside the EA and solves the problems with system hangs. By default it creates and updates the M2 offline file so you dont need any period converters on the Vhands (visual) window.

1. Because I've renamed the new EA you'll need a template called 'MTFvHandstrade.tpl' this should contain only the Vhistory and Vterminal indicators, It should not contain any Period converter indicators.

1. New version of Period_convert_opt.mq4 this has a minor tweak that makes it less likely to cause apparent MT4 lockups.

One final note on Dual Core machines. There are various issues with Dual core PCs causing system and application lockups. Please view the first section of the new guide (in the Zip file) to see what can be done to overcome these issues.

Hi Rangebound,

Just for completion, and in case this issue comes up again, My MT4 vHands has always shown the symbol >> on the button WHILE IN PAUSE MODE. This is to indicate to the user what will occur when the button is next pressed. Accordingly, WHILE RUNNING, the symbol shows || to indicate what will happen if pressed. As I posted, this reverses when I installed the vhandspause variable.

I tried to follow all of your instructions to the letter and in reading your response, I dont see anything that I knowingly missed; however there is probably something. Its like debugging your own code; you always see what you want to see.

I amlooking forward to moving forward with your new version. I will get to it in the next day or so and will report back any further difficulties. Thanks again for all of your work on this. I think this will be a major step in usability of vhands.

sincerely,
seattlerust

Rangebound,

There may be something wrong with the zip file in post #236, as it won't unzip after downloading and saving. I am being told that either it is empty or it is corrupt. I had no problem with any of the other zip files that you attached to your posts. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

If others are having no problems opening the file, please let me know and then perhaps Rangebound could send it to me in another manner.

Thanks,

Seattlerust

Problem has been solved. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Seattlerust

The problem that was solved (see last post) was the ability to download the new zip files and contents. Here is the latest feedback in my efforts to get the MTF up and running.

All appears to be well in following the new MTFstrategyTester document. The ONLY funtion that does not work in my efforts is the update of the M2 chart; nor will it pop ahead when the "skip" is clicked as does the visual chart.

It is as if the DLL function is not working. I tried to check this out by running MT4 in normal mode and creating a 2 Hour chart per the indtructions in the document and this worked just fine. The chart was created by the PeriodConverterOpt indicator when it was attached to the 15 min chart. As expected, without the "Enable DLLs" checked, the new 2H chart was passive but with the "Enable DLLs" checked, the new 2H chart rolled along just fine.

It appears that I am very close but the functionality of creating a 2M chart using the new MTFVhandstrade EA seems to not have turned on the "Enable DLLs".

Please advise.

Thank you.

Seattlerust

Hi,

I had same problem with offline file not updating. To fix this go to Tools->Options->Expert Advisors and make sure the Allow DLL Import box is ticked.

Problem should be resolved.

Cheers
OP

Thanks, OP That does the trick.

SR

Hi all,

Maybe I'm the only one to meet this problem, but after downloading many times the zip file I can't read the vTerminal pdf file and get always the same message: "there was an error opening this document. The file is damaged and could not be repaired"

Please could somebody help me, cause I'm very eager to use Vhands

Thanks in advance