Its not about the number of eyes you have. Its about setting up an orderly method of looking at the markets/charts that you trade one after the other. I dont just look at my monitors and charts randomly. I have everything setup so I start looking from top left monitor(monitor 1) then work clockwise to the other monitors and their charts. Its not that hard, its like juggling, start with 2 monitors, get used to that, then add a 3rd, get used to that, then a 4th,,,and so on.... So easy even a caveman can do it!! But seriously, its all about being ORGANIZED. If I can do it, anyone else should be able to.
I'll definitely take note of that, thnx. Check this link on increasing RAM on XP and tell me what you think. http://www.tutorialized.com/view/tutorial/How-to-use-4Gb-RAM-in-XP/44574
That looks like it would work - on XP Professional (no mention of Home Edition). Under My Computer/Help/About Windows you should see XP Professional if that is what you are using. Doesn't cost anything either - just a config change. The most relevant is #3 under "Operating System Implementation and Application Support" at this url http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/pae/pae_os.mspx Actual direct application support (NinjaTrader itself) would depend on if Ninja is written to support PAE. The key words are "a properly coded application". Don't know if Ninja is coded that way, but a question on their forum would answer that...
"The Linux kernel includes full PAE mode support starting with version 2.3.23, enabling access of up to 64 GB of memory on 32-bit machines. ... " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension 'NT for Linux ... ?': http://www.ninjatrader.com/support/forum/showthread.php?t=336 think there's been threads using 64bit setups with 32/xp pro and 'maximum ram' discussion in either Hardware of Software forums - this may be related: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=173944&highlight=ram presume the video card comes into the equation and the hard drive would using a Solid State improve performance - reduce RAM requirements ? - presuming SS being the 'fastest' hd
you are limited by XP to 9 monitors. It is not possible. Because you are asking something that is not possible I am going to offer you my opinion on how to do things properly for a 6-8mon setup: 10 monitors is foolish and overkill. I don't even see how this could be possible given the motherboards and video cards that are out on the market today - You are obviously going to be mixing and matching video cards - which is a disaster for the system and in terms of driver conflicts. Your best bet would be to use a new-ish motherboard that has 3 16x PCI-e slots and run three quad cards. Running three tripple cards and the onboard video would also be foolish (in my opinion and remember you are limited to 9 by XP). The very best way to run 10 monitors (if you really even need that many... sounds like an ego/competition thing to me) would be across several 2-3 computers. You are trying to accomplish too many things with one machine. If you had the kind of horsepower in one machine to accomplish this you would not be posting here, you would already have your monitors. You are talking about a $7-$10k setup if you do it properly. (YOU WOULD REALLY NEED/WANT A DUAL CPU WINDOWS7X64 SYSTEM AND THATS $6k RETAIL/$4k DIY + MONITORS, STANDS & OTHER CRAP). Try using a dedicated trading computer and a dedicated charting computer or a dedicated trading box with charts but then another for internet/work/chat/everything else. Splitting up the processes across several CPUs is going to be a huge difference. So back to your initial post - you are running XPx86 (32bit XP) which is a joke in terms of limiting computing power. You are limited to 3.2GB or 4GB (depends on bios/mobo) RAM. What CPU do you have running in this thing? You'll bog down an E8400 and probably do the same to a Q9550 - a Q9650 or i5/7 is probably your only bet if you want to attempt that many monitors in one system. You also should upgrade to Windows7x64 because its just better. RAMDRIVE... you are missing the mark if you think that will solve your problems. What video cards are you going to run? go buy yourself a cheap dell refurb and throw up a quick 4-mon setup on a budget. use that for all of your non-trading computing. Take your trading computer and run two 3-mon cards (6mon) and install XPx64 or W7x64. ONLY install your OS and trading charting software, if you need Excel install Excel only, not the entire office suite. ^^edited the () to caps so that my price reference is understood to everyone
Relevant considerations: (1) RAM usage. (2) CPU usage - this depends on the nature/number of indicators and data frequency for each chart, as well as the total number of charts. (3) Disk drive access - reads/writes from/to NinjaTrader program as well as database and other files (located in a separate folder in "My Documents"). A ramdisk provides benefits vis-a-vis item (3).