eSignal Limitations & Performance

[calvis]

Hi

Does anybody know the chart limitations of eSignal 10.0?

I'm loading 35 symbols with 3 advanced charts per symbol giving a total of 105 charts. Each chart displays 6 moving averages and I run my own EFS script which accesses moving averages in different time frames, does some processing on each bar and then DDEs out variables to an Excel spreadsheet. Only between 50 and 70 charts manage to load any bars at all, the rest either showing a blank chart or "loading data...". I can leave it running all day but the number of charts loaded doesn't increase.

Is this an eSignal limitation or a PC problem? Is there anything I can tweak within eSignal or the Data Manager? Any help would be much appreciated.

Kind Regards

Chris

[gspiker]

Does it all load OK if you aren't running your EFS script at all?

Garth

[Doji3333]

Try using the time templates to restrict the amount of data you are loading with the 3 minute charts. You might choose only 500~700 bars of data to try to reduce the load of esignal pulling in all that data.

If you are using the DYNAMIC settings for the charts, then you are probably pulling down way too much data and thus slowing everything down.

[Dave180]

I have similar setups that use efs indicators on charts to scan different symbols also with multiple timeframes accessed (say 6 to 8 charts each with 10 symbols and 3 time series).
I gave up trying to save & load a whole page of this as it never loads the data (like you say).
It works better if you load the charts piecemeal, ie load one, wait, load another, a pain and not always successful (chart reload usually helps).

I never found a complete solution, although I think that if you wrote code to "preload" the data symbol-by-symbol you might succeed - ie some efs that loads a new symbol say every so many seconds (and then discards it before you exceed the max limit) before you load the main charts?

The time template approach is useful, I certainly use that to improve load speeds (it is applied in the above charts). BUT you don't seem to always get a guaranteed number of bars in the way you expect (so you don't always see indicator values that require a specific number of bars for the calc even though you thought you specified enough).

Good luck

[Christine B]

Hello all,

you may as well try to establish a connection to the DataManager first, before you open the eSignal application. To do so, please go to Start > Programs > eSignal > DataManager on your pc and then open the eSignal application.

[Dave180]

Christine, re DM, thanks, but doesn't help as far as I remember.

[calvis]

Many thanks for all the responses.

Yes, I usually load the Data Manager first but this doesn't help. I was using an intraday time template of 72 days enabling me to see a 500 period moving average on a 60 minute chart. Although it was only pulling in about 60 days of data I realised that this may be a problem and so I put it back to dynamic. Now, the charts that do load only get about 20 days of data.

I'll try removing my script and then try loading the charts piecemeal as suggested. I'll keep you posted...

[calvis]

I managed to do some tests. Even removing my script and all studies eSignal only managed to pull in about 37 charts.

The workaround I now use is to start with 30 charts and let each load fully. Then open a page with the 30 charts and an additional 15. Let this fully load and then open a page with the full 60 charts. I think eSignal or the Data Manager buffers some of the data so using this method allows the charts to catch up on themselves.

Regards

Chris

[ScottJ]

Have you by chance tried using our new trade-only history servers to populate your charts? They carry 70% less data due to the absence of b/a data so chart loading should be quicker. For more information, please review this other Central thread.

You'll need to contact us directly to have the special entitlement added to your account.

Thanks.

[Dave180]

Some of my efs uses bid ask prices for volume analysis, so I can't use the new servers.

BUT many charts and efs do NOT need the bid ask, so would benefit.

Unless you set the servers up to deliver either data stream as needed (ie automatically, is it that difficult to switch the bid/ask on and off as required) I don't see that it's a goer.

[ScottJ]

In all cases, bid/ask prices still stream in RT but the intraday history servers are basically all or nothing at present. We're still pretty early in the design so maybe that flexibility could be added at some point but for the near term, if users need historical b/a, they'll need to stick to the existing servers.

We are very actively working on the next build of eSignal and much of our focus in on performance enhancement so good things should be coming in the next 1-2 months.

Thanks.

[Dave180]

Scott, I'm confused by

In all cases, bid/ask prices still stream in RT but the intraday history servers are basically all or nothing at present

As I understand it from my efs experience there is no historic b/a in the tick stream to a chart. The only time you get it is if you do a Tools/Tick Replay/Download. Is that correct? In fact see my unanswered recent post "Historic Bid / Ask availability confusion "

So why will the trade-only servers be any faster at delivering historic chart data without b/a which is what the current servers do anyway?

[gspiker]

Scott,

actually if you can give a more detailed explanation of bid/ask data and how it works with the "traditional" servers and what the "new historical tick server" does, it would be helpful.

I switched to the new server, and still can't load a tick chart most of the time. In fact I can go days without tick charts loading. I looks to be like we still get the first 10 days of tick data from the "traditional" servers and then get the rest from the new server, Is this true?

Thanks,

Garth

[ScottJ]

When you first make a chart request, the desktop goes out to a server and retrieves the data. From that point forward, the chart is being built by the incoming stream of real-time or delayed data. We absolutely send b/a data in RT so if you aren't seeing b/a lines on your chart, you likely have the b/a lines OFF in your settings. Chart Options/Edit Studies/change "Chart Type" to Line/Tick and then select the boxes for Trades/Bid/Ask.

Thanks.

[Dave180]

gspiker

and still can't load a tick chart most of the time. In fact I can go days without tick charts loading.

If you mean the historical part of a tick chart loads slowly and / or not at all (despite scrolling etc) then the fix I use for reliably getting more than a few bars in ES volume charts might help (I assume that volume charts are built from tick data, but as a volume chart presumably needs a lot more tick data than a tick chart I'm not that confident).

Try the following:
Before opening the chart, Tools / Tick Replay / Download (you can throw the file away afterwards), specify the same symbol as you want to use and a day count (today is 1 day). After it has downloaded (make tea if you're after say 10 days of ES data, you can't use eSignal while you're doing it, walking to Starbucks probably isn't long enough, unless there is a queue).

Then try opening the chart.

Beats me why they can't have a "cache local" option for this stuff, would save one hell of a lot of redundant downloading and load on their servers and my bandwidth