I removed literally everything, since it just looked gay on first bootup. Disabled messages, disabled sound, enabled basic display mode (no effects), now im slowly adding what I need.
That's probably 3,552 KB or 3.5 megabytes. XML = eXtended Markup Language. It's a standard way of defining stuff. In this case the file contains the definitions of all your charts, watchlists, screens, etc. Even a new tws.xml is 2MB since it has the default layouts for all the different types of windows. TWS creates a backup for each day of the week (e.g. "tws.Mon.xml") so if you mess up your layout you can go back to a previous day using the Layout/Setting Recovery menu. You could try starting with a new tws.xml. Rename the existing one (e.g. tws25.xml) and when you start TWS it will prompt you for a recovery file. Just say no and add a bunch of charts to see what the performance is like. You can go back to your previous layout using the Layout/Settings Recovery menu and selecting your renamed XML file.
I have had the same problem, sloooow TWS. The solution i have found that works for me is the following: I save my layout, give it a specific name then i delete all open charts and keep my main window with 1 chart and L2 etc the speed improves straight away. i then go into Layout setting -> layout/setting recovery -> custom and i click on the layout i had just saved. Usually things speed up after this, for a few sessions, then starts to go slower and i repeat the process.
Just found out that when in the Activity Window the Orders tab is open (at least when some strategy orders are open), TWS starts hogging my CPU. Took a couple of hours, but sluggish TWS solved for now. Hope this saved some of you some time.
I am a bit late to the party but this link might help. https://ibkr.info/article/2170 Those who point to the memory allocation are barking at the right tree. But it is not as easy as increasing the heap value, you have to take a few considerations in. IB claims that you are supposed to handle the configuration in case TWS is performing slowly. That in my opinion is a lot of rubbish, TWS is software from the past and lacks of any decent performance. They are asking us to allocate 1.5 GB of memory to run that shit, really? Come on, Trading View can run multiple charts in real time on a web browser.
My developer and I have been attempting to use TWS on a VPS and it has been a fairly horrible experience. I was under the impression since IB is basically a trading institution, the TWS speed and API documentation, etc. would be ample, but I was wrong. A lot has gone into this and I'm walking a tight rope, seems to be 1 step forward, 2 steps back with IB. We're now taking the route of IB Gateway and building a small UI rather than TWS. Has anyone had experience doing this and what is the optimal direction?