I have an account with Ameritrade and so I like using TOS for the charts, its decent enough but the damn thing is always freezing up on me. What the hell.
You need to define that a little better. The whole program freezes, for how long, just the charts freeze for a second? If you are occasionally seeing the charts freeze briefly while the quote still updates, then that is normal for TOS especially when things move quickly.
I use TOS and ninjatrader at the same time on one machine. I used to have freezes all the time. Are you running an antivirus/spyware on your machine? I leave mine off while trading and since then, no freezes or hangups. Maybe just lucky, I don't know.
Its the whole program and it will freeze about 4, 5 times a day for about 3 - 8 seconds each time. I think I only have 1 Gig of RAM, maybe I'll go max out at 4 is what I think I can do on this machine.
That is not normal, but if you have a lot of stuff open, pulling a lot of quotes with only 1g of ram that could be an issue. I would recommend calling TOS tech support â if you have the time to wait for someone to pick up â and they can help you check a few things. One would be the settings of the âConfigureâ button when you login, and the values for memory usage. I think they have some people running it on old machines so they may be able to help.
TOS is java based. Which in general is slower than specific system compiled apps. really more of a web app, or better for mobiles. And they've crammed so much stuff into it. And still don't have an overall user manual for the important features! Thinkscript typos and errors can freeze or crash the whole platform and also freeze up windows explorer on windows 7. (ctrl-alt-delete-> taskmanager->end process/program to get out of it) Also works on Linux and Mac. You can just install it on another system, and type your account and your settings which are mostly saved server side, pop up. However, custom studies still don't transfer over which is a pain. You can export them and then have to move them over manually. That said, I'm used to it, and it's currently my only platform. And slow or not I like all the features in one platform (CNBC/chat rooms/presentations, options p/l graphs etc) and I've gotten more used to the thinkscript and scan scripts and best of all it's free with an account with the can't-live-without papertrading version. But I'm looking into another platform just for daytrading 1min/5min charts. The slippage and freezing is awful to trade in those time frames. And it got worse since Ameritrade took over TOS. Options and stock position and swing trading are ok though with all symbols in one roof. Nice, graphically adjustable stops and alerts too. I would say make sure one has a dual or quad core overall system with plenty of ram, >= 2GB.
I've run TOS on a little netbook without any issues... not quite snappy but no delays as you are describing.
+1 to everyone cloudy said. make sure you have anti-virus installed use cccleaner (http://www.piriform.com/CCLEANER) on a regular basis (a tip for cccleaner: do NOT mess w/ the registry settings!).