Question concerning icustom

Hey, I'm working on an EA for my CARMEN indicator and I have a question.

I'm using icustom and when I backtest, I see that the indicator is being loaded and removed every tick and this slows down the backtest tremendously. Where do I put the icustom or how do I structure the code so this doesn't happen?

Not sure how your EA is set up but if it is like most you are only checking the previous bar to get your values so you could just check every time there is a new bar.

if(Time[1] != checktime)
{
carmenvalue = icustom(blahblahblah);
checktime=Time[1]);
}

I already use that code to load my indicator just once a bar, thats not my problem. My problem is every time I do load it, it re-calculates all bars. I of course only need it to recalculate the most recent bar. Any ideas?

I am aware that when an indicator is plotted, the IndicatorCounted() function is used to determine how many bars have changed since the last tick, and the indicator then determines how many bars need to be calculated again, but I don't think this is happening when the indicator is used in a EA. For one reason, in an EA, nothing is getting plotted.

If it is not necessary, (and it is not necessary, because you are not plotting an index buffer) remove, (or change the for value to stop at 0, only one pass) the for loop from your icustom indicator, so it only draws data from the field you specify in your parameters. You could save this as a special indicator, so it does not get confused with the custom indicator that you place on your chart. You could also eliminate all of the unneeded extern inputs, by deleting the extern for each that will not be changed when the EA calls the custom indicator. This way only the index buffer element you are calling is computed.

So you might have calls like this:
varA = iCustom(blah blahblah,1,0);
varB = iCustom(blah blah blah,1,1);
varC= iCustom(blah blah blah,0,0);
varD = iCustom(blah blah blah,0,4);

And so on.

In your iCustom call, the only variable that you are allowed to change is the shift value withoout kicking off a recalculate. Should you change one of the parameter values, MT4 will create a whole new set of data for that new set of paramters. Hence, you seeing a recalculate of a whole new set of buffers with the expectation that you will be making a future call to acquire data from these buffers with the same set of paramters --- but if you constantly changing the parameters, this is not likely and your performance spirals DOWN.

When you are actually trading in real time, most indis will only recalulate for the most recent bars and not the complete history.

KingHigh

I would extract from the indicator the useful code that does the calculation, put it in a library as a function, and #include the file, and call the function from the EA. Then there is no need to use iCustom at all. This way you will get the maximum speed up.

PS: if you do this you can then possibly use the same library for your original indicator, so that you don't duplicate much code.

Hi I was using an indicator called pattern_recognition_master_v3 but started getting zero divide errors done a search and found a solution in this forum so became a member i found that one of the members had rewrote some code in it called it version 7 and it worked except now when i back test and ea that calls it, the journal reports successfully loaded then removed on every tick i also modified this indicator myself to v8 which stops it counting the already counted bars but this still does not stop it reloading and unloading is it possible i have done as Kinghigh says and changed a variable in my ea that is causing this or maybe a variable in v7 v6 v5 or v4 of the indicator has been modified therefor throwing my ea of coarse hmm never thought of that will have to try check it has a whole load of bool trues split by the odd colour and int !

these are the indicators i mentioned in my previous message incase anyone wants to take a look there is a whole thread on this within this forum

fixed it doh of coarse the variable for extra digit was removed by Don so all i had to do is remove first true in my icustom and problem sorted thanks kinghigh will try to remember that in future variable in ea (icustom) and indicator must be the same except for last (shift). If you need them different change the indicators code but if someone else does make sure you keep up in ea!! nice lesson learnt today I think I like this forum! been looking for someone that can help me with problems seems this forum does a good job!

Thank you this thread I just found the solution to fix my EA.