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Multiple MT4 Clients open and charts freeze

  • #1
  • First Post: Sep 8, 2009 12:50pm Sep 8, 2009 12:50pm
I have been using MT4 for a while, on most computers I can run 5-10 MT4 clients without any problem, even on old computers. On one of my computers which is sufficient in power, speed, memory, etc. I can run at most 3 MT4 Clients. When I run a 4th client when I try to switch between charts my screen freezes and i must double click on the tab to get the chart up or to switch to another one. In fact lately once I open 4 mt4's my moving between tabs on the charts is near impossible, since the charts freeze, the program is still responsive.

Granted I do have 25 charts open on each client, but I do not seem to have a problem with other PC's with the same client setup.

I am assuming this has something to do with my system and graphics card. I have an nvidia 7800 gt, dual core pc 4 gb.
(mt4 clients are installed in different directories)


Does anyone else have this problem? or does anyone know why this happens? or a possible solution?

Thanks
  • #2
  • Sep 8, 2009 5:36pm Sep 8, 2009 5:36pm
Metatrader is not a multi threaded application, so having multiple cores doesn't matter much unless you manually set the affinity.

In tools > Options > chart, how many bars do you have in history?
  • #3
  • Sep 8, 2009 7:41pm Sep 8, 2009 7:41pm
I figure that the cores don't matter, but I am leaning towards the graphics card having something to do with it, I don't know why its just a hunch.



I have it set to the default that comes with my mt4, here is a pic

Attached Image



Do you do anything different with your bar history? What is your setting?

Maybe if I post a screen video of the actual chart freezing that would allow someone to see it better, possibly diagnose it.

Thanks a lot for any help with this matter
  • #4
  • Sep 8, 2009 9:39pm Sep 8, 2009 9:39pm
I set mine down to 10,000 not 65,000

Also, open up the task manager (Ctrl + Alt + Del) and tell me how much ram and cpu all instances of "terminal.exe" is using.
  • #5
  • Sep 8, 2009 10:05pm Sep 8, 2009 10:05pm
You probably have an indicator that is clogging the charts.

Try reducing the number of bars in the chart as suggested, or look for an earlier version of that indy. Aslo, if you're using the indy for an EA, you don't necessarily need to load it on all charts..;
"Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money" - Danny De Vito
  • #6
  • Sep 9, 2009 1:13am Sep 9, 2009 1:13am
Quoting Ronald Raygun
Metatrader is not a multi threaded application, so having multiple cores doesn't matter much unless you manually set the affinity.
Have you tried setting the affinity stuff?
Method..if any ?

Regards
100 Fold Challenge->Interested? ->https://www.forexfactory.com/thread/32152
  • #7
  • Sep 9, 2009 4:12pm Sep 9, 2009 4:12pm
IMO freshly installed MT4 without a ton of indicators/experts also makes it run snappier.
You can check the start>run>msconfig as sometimes many startup items can slow down the system because they also use the RAM.
  • #8
  • Sep 9, 2009 4:49pm Sep 9, 2009 4:49pm
Quoting forexsaint
Have you tried setting the affinity stuff?
Method..if any ?

Regards
In the task manager, right click on the process you want to set the affinity for (metatrader is "Terminal.exe") click on set affinity, then on the resulting screen, make sure only ONE core is checked for that process. If you check every core, then that process will first use core 0, then 1, then 2, etc.
  • #9
  • Sep 9, 2009 6:42pm Sep 9, 2009 6:42pm
Quoting Ronald Raygun
Metatrader is not a multi threaded application, so having multiple cores doesn't matter much
The OS will distribute the the individual Metatrader instances evenly across all the available cores. Additionally MT4 Expert Advisors run in a different thread than the main program (only indicators run in the main thread).
  • #10
  • Sep 9, 2009 7:54pm Sep 9, 2009 7:54pm
Quoting Ronald Raygun
I set mine down to 10,000 not 65,000

Also, open up the task manager (Ctrl + Alt + Del) and tell me how much ram and cpu all instances of "terminal.exe" is using.
Tried setting the bars down to 10,000, still no help

Here is a pic of my task manager and terminal stats

Attached Image


It does not seem like terminal.exe uses excessive resources



Quoting slide
You probably have an indicator that is clogging the charts.

Try reducing the number of bars in the chart as suggested, or look for an earlier version of that indy. Aslo, if you're using the indy for an EA, you don't necessarily need to load it on all charts..;
I trade naked, all I have is a few horizontal and vertical lines, a few arrows, and 1-2 fibs, No Indicators and no EA's



Quoting forexsaint
Have you tried setting the affinity stuff?
Method..if any ?

Regards
Quoting Ronald Raygun
In the task manager, right click on the process you want to set the affinity for (metatrader is "Terminal.exe") click on set affinity, then on the resulting screen, make sure only ONE core is checked for that process. If you check every core, then that process will first use core 0, then 1, then 2, etc.

I will try this and write up my results


Thanks alot for this help guys, I really appreciate it.
  • #11
  • Sep 9, 2009 8:11pm Sep 9, 2009 8:11pm
Quoting 7bit
The OS will distribute the the individual Metatrader instances evenly across all the available cores. Additionally MT4 Expert Advisors run in a different thread than the main program (only indicators run in the main thread).
Windows hasn't really managed to achieve this very well.
  • #12
  • Sep 9, 2009 9:16pm Sep 9, 2009 9:16pm
Quoting Ronald Raygun
Windows hasn't really managed to achieve this very well.
Really?

(I dont use windows for anything else than metatrader. I just assumed that MS were finally able to produce at least the very basics of a functioning operating system after all those years of trial and error with their thousands of paid programmers)
  • #13
  • Sep 10, 2009 6:59am Sep 10, 2009 6:59am
Windows XP was designed primarily for AMD Duron/Pentium III computers. Back in those days, they were incredibly stable, and ran only on one core.

Vista was presumably meant to be a more bloated version of Windows XP. The idea presumably was that there was plenty of unused processing power, so we can afford more bloated features, that obviously didn't work.

Windows 7 was a move to the 64-bit computing side, and an effort to remove bloatware, and utilize computing resources more efficiently. I haven't used windows 7 extensively yet (lack of applications and shoddy MT4 support), but hopefully it'll be just as good, if not better than xp.

Then came the Pentium IV and Athlon XP, these had core virtualization which allowed multiple process to run simultaneously. The problem was, multithreading (as it's known today) was the responsibility of the application, not the operating system.

As far as I know, Snow Leopard is the first consumer operating system which was designed specifically with multi-threading in mind. This little technology is called "Grand Central Dispatch" If microsoft's copying machines are worth anything, I expect to see a competing technology coming out very soon. Until then, my heavy computing may very well be done on a mac.
  • #14
  • Sep 10, 2009 10:40pm Sep 10, 2009 10:40pm
Okay, so I tried to set different affinity settings for the MT4 terminal.exe

I first opened one MT4 and set the affinity to CPU 0 then opened another and did the same, and so on. I managed to get 5 instances of MT4 running on CPU 0 without any problem. I tried adding a 6th and 7th but they caused enormous slowdowns and chart freezing to the point of MT4 being inoperable. After about 4-5 hours the 5 MT4 clients running they started to get slow and the same problem with the chart freezing started again to the point of being inoperable. I closed one client and had 4 running and the charts were working good. After about 3-4 hours the MT4 instances once again started to go really slow and freeze up on changing tabs from chart to chart until I closed down to 3 instances, which work fine and essentially put me back to square 1.

I did this again after restarting my computer. I also tried this with setting the affinity to CPU 1 and a mix of CPU 0 and CPU 1. With the same results as above. I was able to get 5 instances then a slowdown and freezing after 2-3 hours, had to move to 4 and also the same slowdown and freezing after like 2-3 hours.

I also noticed when I opened another application like Forextester, that when I have 4 charts up, the charts start to slow down and do the freezing thing with the tabs and such. I am assuming once I have 4 charts working that forextester did something to force the chart slowdowns. 3 instances of MT4 and forextester did work fine. I also tried changing the affinity of forextester with no effect.


The good thing is with changing the affinity I was able to get up to 5 charts working for a period of time. The bad is after a while I could only get 4 and then 3 charts, and additional applications apparently affect MT4 somehow. My guess would be a memory leak of some sort?


Even if I can get an additional MT4 client for a total of 4 I will be happier than 3, but I would definitely like to get a few more up and running without the charts freeze problem.

Does anyone have any comments? possible solutions? ideas? or experience with this problem?


Thanks for all the help guys.
  • #15
  • Sep 11, 2009 1:34pm Sep 11, 2009 1:34pm
are you making heavy usage of custom indicators on your charts? I have seen quite a few indicators that make *heavy* usage of the CPU on every tick which will lead to bad responsiveness of the whole metatrader GUI since they all use (and block) the GUI thread.

And if you set all your metatraders to CPU0 they will of course take away each other's resources, try to let them all run on different CPUs.
  • #16
  • Sep 11, 2009 1:41pm Sep 11, 2009 1:41pm
Quoting 7bit
are you making heavy usage of custom indicators on your charts? I have seen quite a few indicators that make *heavy* usage of the CPU on every tick which will lead to bad responsiveness of the whole metatrader GUI since they all use (and block) the GUI thread.

And if you set all your metatraders to CPU0 they will of course take away each other's resources, try to let them all run on different CPUs.

Like I said, I use no custom indicators, I have a few horizontal and vertical lines on my charts, an arrow or 2, a fibonnacci or 2, I use no indicators, scripts, or EA's.


Yes I know not to set all to CPU 0, I tried different setups, such as all on CPU 0, all on CPU 1, and a mix of CPU 0 and CPU 1.


Hey I am just wondering what your computer setup is since you don't have this problem. What processor, graphics card, OS do you use? How many instances of MT4 can you run?

Thanks
  • #17
  • Sep 11, 2009 1:46pm Sep 11, 2009 1:46pm
Quoting Ronald Raygun
The problem was, multithreading (as it's known today) was the responsibility of the application, not the operating system.
These times are long gone since DOS.

All commonly used operating systems and even Windows can schedule processes, they dont need to be cooperative anymore. And a quick google search shows that Windows indeed will automatically distribute the running processes evenly over all available CPUs, as every sane operating system does.

(Not only Mac can do this, this also works with every Linux and all newer Windows versions.)
  • #18
  • Sep 12, 2009 8:47am Sep 12, 2009 8:47am
Quoting chr5648
Hey I am just wondering what your computer setup is since you don't have this problem. What processor, graphics card, OS do you use? How many instances of MT4 can you run?

Thanks
I dont really have this problem because i don't try to run so much MT4 instances. I have had only 2 Intances running for a while without problems, at the moment i only have one. My host OS is Ubuntu Linux and Metatrader runs in a Windows XP-Professional installation inside a VirtualBox VM.

I have all trading related things, even my oanda account (which could also run on linux) running in a virtual machine. On Friday i just freeze the running machine and on sunday evening i wake it up again. All applications in my host OS are running fluently again since i put all these resource hungry things into the VM.

(I Just have a crazy idea, you probably dont want to do this: If you have enough RAM, maybe try to run several minimal XP installations in several virtual machines (give 300MB RAM to each), this way they cant do nasty things (other than using too much CPU) with each other and your host operating system)
  • #19
  • Sep 12, 2009 11:38am Sep 12, 2009 11:38am
hey chr..... the number of cores does matter.... and it matters tremendously.....

you are correct, given the manner in which your using metatrader you should be able to run dozens of terminals at the same time with no trouble what so ever even on the most basic of machines...... as long as there is memory available.....


the picture of your task manager where you show your terminal usage, was that taken during a time when the platform was slow to respond or charts freezing alltogether.....

what is your system idle amount during your lockups....

below here are some pictures , hopefully in order.... with many terminals running , i am going to intentionally lockup one terminal.....

the first picture has 12 platforms running..... notice the cpu usage but also as important notice the memory being used for each terminal..... note the system idle is in mid 90's......



the second picture you can see i've open yet another platform.... note it's memory is only 9600k..... this is a real account mini that i will now intentionally lockup with 1 chart and 1 indicator....

with the chart open and indicator applied, the third picture shows the memory usage ramping up and the cpu at 51%..... this has maxed out one core..... the platform will not respond.....

all other platforms are preforming normally.... no slow down whatsoever.....

and the last picture shows the locked up platform finally settling down, but with huge memory usage..... it will now open and close charts....

summing up,

the number of cores does matter.... the more the better....

what is your system idle process amount during lockups....

what is the cpu and memory usage of each platform during lockups....

what is the physical memory amount before you open any platforms and also during lockups.... seen at the bottom of the task manager....

and last, will it lockup when your computer is offline......h
Attached Image(s) (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: lockup.jpg Size: 171 KB
Click to Enlarge Name: lockup2.jpg Size: 170 KB
Click to Enlarge Name: lockup3.jpg Size: 167 KB
Click to Enlarge Name: lockup4.jpg Size: 173 KB
Click to Enlarge Name: lockup5.jpg Size: 177 KB
to trade and code, keep both simple... no call to impress....h
  • #20
  • Last Post: Sep 12, 2009 2:08pm Sep 12, 2009 2:08pm
Quoting hayseed
hey chr..... the number of cores does matter.... and it matters tremendously.....

you are correct, given the manner in which your using metatrader you should be able to run dozens of terminals at the same time with no trouble what so ever even on the most basic of machines...... as long as there is memory available.....


the picture of your task manager where you show your terminal usage, was that taken during a time when the platform was slow to respond or charts freezing alltogether.....

what is your system idle amount during your lockups.......

I don't know what you define as a lock up but I will define it for me and I have uploaded a picture of what happens to my MT4, I tried making a video but camtasia for some reason did not recognize the screen apparently because of the MT4 problem.

Here it is

Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: 9-12-2009 2-42-58 PM.jpg Size: 227 KB


I had 6 instances of MT4 running.

As you can see when I try to switch between charts this is what I get, the charts don't change, just the chart area freezes. I can go to file, view, use any of the options. Everything else works except the chart area. I can right click and get the options, everything except the charts show up when clicking on the tabs.

Quote
what is your system idle process amount during lockups....

what is the cpu and memory usage of each platform during lockups....

what is the physical memory amount before you open any platforms and also during lockups.... seen at the bottom of the task manager....

and last, will it lockup when your computer is offline......h
I checked during this "lockup" and my system idle amount was in the mid-upper 90's usually between 90-96. Even when I opened a 7th and 8th MT4.

CPU usage ranges from 0-3% and memory use is from 2,000K to 8,000K for each instance.

Physical memory before I open any platform is 545-570 and when 6 platforms it is 968 this is out of 4961.

I disconnected the LAN wire and the same problem happens.
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