Experience of esignal on Windows 7?

[jgr]

I am running esignal on Windows 7 64 bit today for the first trading session. I have read where while W7 feels quicker that when it comes to raw computing power it is slower than either XP or Vista. My esignal "paused" several times today under typical volume. This may be more "pausing" than I was experiencing with Vista 64. Under high volume situations, it would freeze up under Vista 64 particularly before Maintenance Release 2 which seems to have improved things.

Any other observations?

[dloomis]

I have been running W7 since the betas were out and haven't skipped a beat, will upgrade to the latest release soon.

[jgr]

W7 is slower than Vista

I have too many charts and indicators and have expereience with Vista 64 numerious "not responding" periods usually a few seconds when a lot of data comes in.

With Windows 7, those are much more frequent and longer. I experienced three just in typing this message.

What happens is that when the CPU load gets to 60% esignal stops until the load goes down. With Vista it was more lilke 80%.

This is consistent with reports I have seen that W7 is slower internally than either XP or Vista. ( I suspect they are devoting more resources to the user interface and less to core computing so the perceived response is better but the actual is less)

[eSignal_ShaheedM]

Hi there,

Thanks for your posts.
Have you gone through the recommended suggestions here?

Could you please advise your current system specifications:
Monitor resolution
Processor
RAM
Available hard disk space

Have you performed all the current Microsoft Windows 7 updates?
Also, please advise if you are operating through any security?

With your permission, I would like to pass on this information back to my team.

[jgr]

My firewall is set to allow esignal as you show. I have not been running it in XP compatibility mode however. (BTW the production verison of Windows 7 had different set up screens than what you show). I just now set up compatibility mode. W7 actually test the application and it set up XP SP2 as the correct compatibility.

My system is a Core 2 Duo, 2.4 GHz, 4 Gbyte Ram, 3Gbit DSL, dual monitors on ATI Radeo 4600 series card. HD is 6 Gbyte on two DHs.

I have W7 64 bit upgrade from Vista 64 bit ultimate. All updates are installed.

I have a lot of stuff going in esignal and this is not a new problem with my system. I am taking a number of measures recommended by esignal to minimize the issue. What I am reporting is far more observed pauses WITH THE SAME IDENTICAL SETUP than I had on Vista 64 just last week before I upgraded last week end.

Two confirmations of slower W7 performance.

It has been reported by testing labs that W7 is slower than either XP or Vista (It feels faster but at the core computing level - not so).

I have tacit confirmation from a MS tech on their forum that on W7 they have added back in some of the 16 bit support on the 64 bit platform that was removed in Vista. Unfortunately, even though 16 bit coding has been obsolete for about15 years, it is still there. This no doubt adds to the overhead at the kernel level

[jgr]

Windows 7, Only one CPU core used with Esignal

Since upgrading my computer to Windows 7 (64 bit) from Vista (64 bit) Esignal has been pausing for several minutes at a time whenever the trade rate goes up some.

Looking into this, using the Resource Monitor that is built into W7, I discovered, that one one of the two CPU cores (Core 2 Duo CPU)is used for Esignal. The graph attached shows clearly, that CPU 1 is at maximum while CPU is low. The Orange line in the CPU Total graph is what Esignal is using. You can see that it flatenes out at 50% when CPU1 is loaded.

This was taken today, 10/29, about 10 minutes before market close when the trade volume was high.

[JayF]

jgr,

This happens not only on Windows 7 but in every OS that eSignal 10.x (and older) runs in. This is due to the fact that the major data thread upon which eSignal consumes CPU resources can only be processed by one core. Other portions of eSignal are multi-threaded such as the calculations of basic studies, Advanced GET studies and the GUI, however the data layer has yet to be multi-threaded.

This will change next year when the new eSignal is set to be released. We'll be able to then take full advantage of the new Core i5 / i7 processors that are permeating the PC market.

[eSignal_JamesR]

Experience of esignal on Windows 7?

Hi jgr,

Can you also try testing your installation with a brand new page file? I notice below that you mentioned this is the same setup you had on Vista so I am assuming the same page file setup was also brought across.

I have encountered many incidents where a corrupted page file or even chart file within that page file caused the CPU to spike higher than normal causing freezing in the program and sometimes even crash errors.

If possible, create a new 'testing' page and run a couple of charts similar to what you already are using simply as a means of finding out is this occurring within a brand new page file. This would be helpful going forward if we encounter any other issues and also rule out possible page file problems for our testers.

[jgr]

I did rebuild the page(s) I use and that may have helped. I also removed a lot of the indicators I had installed on the charts. I did some testing with a custom chart I built that uses a MA over 4000 or so $TICK bars. It is clear that this is adding a lot to the load.

I have also changed the chart displays to be narrow (fewer bars) to minimize the demand on the CPU during periods of high activity.

I am bringing in about 120 issues so that is not a lot.

I have bought new computer ineternals that when I have it running will give me 4 cores at 2.8 GHz (Intel i7-860) with 8 Gbyte DDR3 Ram at 1600, and also runs my HD at 3 Gbit not the 1.5 that my preseent board does. All of this should make a difference.

[jgr]

I did upgrade my computer (built a new one actually) using a gamer's board (ASUS P7P55D) with a 4 core Intel i7-860 and 8 Gbyte DDR3 Ram. This was a major improvement. When the old Core 2 Duo would run at 30% to 50% CPU most of the time during trading, this one runs 2% to 5%. I have not seen the "not responsind" message once - but the volume has not been that great recently either.