running eSignal on Windows Vista 64bit edition

[hkwng99]

hi, i m planning to upgrade my computer and considering to get one with Vista 64bit preloaded, but after reading from the Knowledge Base, eSignal is still working to be "Vista certified" and expected to be done by mid 2008, so should i wait to upgrade and is it better to stick with Vista 32bit ed. or will Vista 64bit ed. provides better performance?? thx.

Henry.

[Ainsley]

Ive been running Vista 64 for a year or so now and have found it to be pretty good but it has a crushing requirment for resources ie loads of memory and CPU to run even basic tasks but saying all that its pretty good.

Vista with jsut the OS and the Chess game running requires over 1 Gig of RAM, I have 4 Gig so thats OK, with eSignal running its taking 43% of my 4 Gig but thats the OS and not the GET program.

GET v 7 & 9 can be troublesome to get going as the sentinal driver takes a bit to sort out but the accounts based V10 works first time every time so go for it but dont expect some of your older programs to run ie 8 / 16 bit, forget it unless you load VMWare or DosBox, even some 32 bit apps dont all work but all the business apps do.

enjoy

[hkwng99]

thx Ainsley for your reply.

I am interested in Vista 64bit only bcuz i saw some high end brand name computers selling at Bestbuy etc. are preloaded with it. And hoping eSignal might come out with a 64bit version soon and it will provide a signifcant boost on performance (ie no lagging on charts etc.) Otherwise, I think either Windows XP or Vista 32bit is fine for me. In addition, I am not sure if any of the apps i use are still 16bit.

[Ainsley]

The lagging on charts would have to be the internet connection and data load per chart.

From Australia to the US I get a sub 2 second chart refresh which is very good considering the hops to the destination and return trip with the data.

What is the time lag you have i.e. is it screen refresh on chart selection / update??

If you get the top end hardware just make sure you have a good graphics card i.e. 8800 ultra or better along with 2-4 gig fast ram and of course a terabyte of disk space which has a 32 meg cache and a spin speed of 7200rpm or better

Oh yes and one last thing, the screen display, I’ve bought the 30 inch apple high definition cinema screen with a resolution of 2590 or so, now this makes everything look good even a chart that’s going down with loads of shorting opportunity.

and one last thing, make sure the machine is quite, the last thing you want is to be searching and managing your trades and have this ideal state of mind interrupted by a noisy fan.

[dhunniford]

Hi Ainsley,
Why do you feel you need such high end graphics cards to run what is essentially the most basic of graphic tasks?
Also why would you feel you need a terabyte of disk space/
Or have I got the wrong end of the stick and you are not talking about eSignal, but just for computing in general.

[Ainsley]

Why have basic when the best is available, Esignal looks great on a 30 inch 2560 by 1600 screen and as for the terrabyte, well thats for the media centre and the 60 inch screen but the general power is needed these days just to run the OS but thats ok as well.

I guess one can drive a lexus or a VW, both do the job but one is really nice.

[dhunniford]

Originally posted by Ainsley
Why have basic when the best is available, Esignal looks great on a 30 inch 2560 by 1600 screen and as for the terrabyte, well thats for the media centre and the 60 inch screen but the general power is needed these days just to run the OS but thats ok as well.

I guess one can drive a lexus or a VW, both do the job but one is really nice.

LOL that's cool mate, was only asking because I'm upgrading my workstation and wasn't allocating that sort of budget. I'm more of an I'll drive the VW and ski 3 times a year on the change. Each to their own, thanx for the reply.
Oh and a 30 inch screen would look pretty cool, was looking at a 24" myself.

[hkwng99]

thx

thx for all the replies.

i found that the lagging on eSignal (at least on mine) was created by my extra quotes screen, which got updated every tick and saturated the CPU when market was moving fast. as a result, i closed one of the two quotes screen and everything working fine now.

i read on another thread and saw a reply from eSignal staff saying the upcoming ver 10.2 and 10.3 (from 3 - 9 months) will be programmed as 64bit app. too. i think i will wait for it to come out before i upgrade my computers. guess it will be more like 9 -12 months.

personally i think video card is not a main concern for me, as i only use my computers for charts and quotes, both 2D applications, but if you also use your computers for gaming, then you will need a powerful graphics card. i think more and faster memory will help though. just my 2 cents.

[gspiker]

Just and FYI on 64 bit apps in general. I'm posting this because you mention 64 bit support, and I have been some statements on this board expecting that a 64 bit app will run much faster than a 32 bit app. This isn't true...

There is a host of evidence out there that, while many apps do run slightly faster as 64 bit apps on 64 bit processors, very few see any significant gains and some even run slower.

There are also things to consider wrt hardware when switching to 64 bt applications. They have bigger footprints, and use more memory and will tnd overload the processor cache much more quickly. So it is even more important to make sure you get more memory and processors with larger caches (for their architecture type) when running 64 bit applications.

Now there are good reasons for 64 bit processors and OS's, and I will not bore people with what they are, so don't think I'm saying not to buy a 64 bit processor or don't run a 64 bit OS. But I am saying I think too many people have too high an expectation of the benefits of a running a 64 bit application vs. a 32 bit application. For most apps this isn't going to be the performance bonanza that we saw when going from 8 bit to 16 or 16 to 32...

Again, this comment is targeted at eSignal in specific; I only have a guess at the performance delta difference between 32 bit and 64 bit eSignal based on experiences with similar apps.

[gspiker]

>Again, this comment is targeted at eSignal in specific;

Should read:

>Again, this comment is NOT targeted at eSignal in specific;

Hopefully that was clear because of the rest of the sentance, but I wanted to clarify in case it wasn't.

[dhunniford]

Quite frankly I'd be satisfied with a program that just worked without crashing all over the place, nver mind 64 bit or multi core. Baby's gotta walk before running.