Tradestation in VMWare; multiple desktops, unity, and Ubuntu?

Discussion in 'Automated Trading' started by garchbrooks, Apr 11, 2010.

  1. Has anyone gotten this configuration to work? Since TS is single-threaded, I figured putting it on a VM in Linux with two cores allocated to it would be enough. The problem then becomes that if I use the VMWare player, I'm limited to one window, instead of being able to create new desktops and have them span multiple monitors. Unity seems to be broken with Ubuntu in 9.10; no luck getting it to work.

    Does anyone out there have a similar, working configuration? The goal is to just have multiple desktop windows, but in Linux.
     
  2. I am interested in this discussion too. I am using TradeStation on an Intel quad core machine. The TradeStation software, or the "orchart.exe" process specifically, is only executed on 1 core and 1 hyperthread. Sometimes even though that core/hyperthread is very busy, the other cores just remain idle. I tried spinning off "new desktop" from within TradeStation but all the "desktops" in TradeStation still just use the same "orchart.exe" process - thus in the same core.

    If you use multiple VM desktops to run TradeStation, would TradeStation require you to have a second/third login? Or can you still use the same one?

    Any idea to make TradeStation works over multiple cores will be interesting.
     
  3. There's no way around the single thread issue, but my comment was supposed to imply that if we're stuck with one thread anyway, it's not so absurd to put it into a VM. I didn't want the forum trolls and egomaniacs to harp on me for being an absolute idiot, although this may happen anyway. The VM-based performance hit doesn't make a huge difference, particularly in some Windows XP VM.

    With multiple VMs, I think you do need multiple logins. And I think that comes with associated platform fees, but I'm not sure. Would be interested to hear if anyone out there is running multiple instances.
     
  4. Baywolf

    Baywolf

    enabled RDP on the windows host, then use use an RDP client on your unbutu box. You can specify the width of the window to span across multiple monitors.

    sudo apt-get install rdesktop
     
  5. Doesn't help, because then you don't get the desktop partitioning and it becomes awkward when you want to arrange windows alongside consoles. Also, you can't move them into a different virtual workspace then.
     
  6. Have you tried to run TS under wine?
     
  7. You can also try Sun Virtual Box. I got NT to run with Mint on VB.
     
  8. That is because Linus supposedly is too priimitive there, sadly.

    Install Windows 7 as host, use Windows 7 as RDP client - the new version of the RDP protocol has EXPLICIT support for multi monitor configurations and is just copying all your screens AND THEIR LAYOUT to the RDP server. THis means "native" multi monitor support, including knowing thre are multiple monitors and how they split up. It is a really nice experience compared to the old "one screen to span them all" approach.
     
  9. You've added to my list of reasons why I should upgrade. I tend to not upgrade unless I buy a new computer, when it comes to Windows. I'd still prefer a decent VMWare unity solution, though.

    I haven't tried WINE, mostly because I hear WINE fails horribly with TradeStation 8's installer.
     
  10. trading under the VMWare with no problem. My setup is different however.

    My Windows XP is running on a VmWare virtual machine. The host is an Apple MAC OS X 10.6 running on a laptop(Core 2 Duo, 2.53Ghz, 6M L2 Cache, with 4Gb RAM. One external monitor connected as well.

    I am using MultiCharts and it is capable of using multiple cores. So far everything run smooth. And yes, Windows XP has full control over both of my monitors: the laptop and the external 2048x1152.

    If you like Tradestation, you will love MultiCharts. Give it a try. MultiCharts user's thread: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=102469&perpage=6&pagenumber=89

    --
     
    #10     Apr 12, 2010