Thanks shfly and Tonkadad I will look into medvedtrader and SC more. Tonkadad, I will trial SC soon enough, but do you trade using IB data or some other data provider? NinjaTrader_Ray, I have actually had a go with NinjaTrader before, but there were limitations (due to IB API as I understand it) and only the best bid and ask were displayed in the DOM when using IB data. I have tried Multicharts as well but doesnt work well with IB data as well with the same problems whilst using the DOM. I suppose really, I would need something like kinetick data powering Ninjatrader instead and same for multicharts - use a 3rd party data provider but still use IB just for execution, I suppose that is possible - different data provider to the execution broker.
I used IB for a long time (as data) but for the last few months have been using their new feed, a tick by tick feed from CME. I have been meaning to compare it with IB data, just been lazy.
SC's new data feed? yea that looks like an interesting option, definitely makes it more convenient having the data feed and platform charged in a single payment. IB meant to do snapshots of data not tick by tick, don't know if that has changed, but it does seem (from inferring what you said) you probably aren't able to tell if there is a big difference. Thanks for your info anyway, it has all been very helpful.
If you trade time based charts, then I wouldn't sweat the difference. If you use indicators or tick/volume charts then there would be a difference but still not necessarily an issue. If/when you get it set up tell me what you are trading and I can post a pic with the CME data and yo can compare to IB's data.
Yea it will be fine for some people, we all want different things out of the software. And for me I don't particularly like the time and sales window, firstly the data feed is really snapshots that occurs every 0.2-0.3s, so sometimes data is aggregated, plus the fact that I cannot see at a glance if the trades are going through at the bid or ask. (Vote @ IB's feature poll http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/general/poll/?sid=9005 and http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/general/poll/?sid=8326) and hence the reason why I am exploring an alternative front end. And yes Tonkadad, it will be interesting to compare the data feed. Depending on how you trade, it may or may not be significant, but assuming that IB hasn't changed the way its data feed works since 2010, I think the difference could be something like this http://support.marketdelta.com/entries/117533-Interactive-Brokers-IB-Data-Snapshot-Data