Hi Captn,
Sorry for the delay, but I am traveling and SI was down last night and this morning.
I'll do my best here to give you all the info that I can. I will try to answer any other question, but I will be a little out of pocket for the next 2 weeks. I will be on a business trip to NYC. I am a part-time software developer, and part-time day trader.
I am currently using a Pentium 150 w/128MB RAM, ATI XPERT@PLAY w/8MB RAM, 21" Phillips 201B monitor at 1600x1280, 7GB of hard drive space, and 128KB ISDN. I have the high memory because I am a software developer, and I have found this to be very beneficial in my work.
I was using a 17" monitor, but found that I preferred to have more real estate for RealTickIII. 17" will do fine, but 15" just won't work in my opinion unless you only watch 1 or 2 stocks at a time. The 8MB video card is required to get good high resolution and color on the 21" monitor.
I have found that my Pentium 150 may not be speedy enough for RealTickIII (RT3) and real time data feeds. I would suggest a minimum of a P233 w/64MB of RAM, definitely no less than 32MB. Look for a system that has at least 512K L2 cache. AGP (Advanced Graphics Port) is also recommended if you get a new system along with a video card that supports it.
A 17" monitor will suffice, but a 21" is exceptional. Check egghead.com Liquidation for a Philips 21" 2120DC. If they still have it in stock, it was selling new for $499. I got my 201B there at the same price, but they are now out of stock. If you get a 21" monitor, an 8MB video card is highly recommended. Check megadepot.com for some good prices. The ATI XPERT@PLAY is great, and the Diamond video cards are great too. AGP if your motherboard supports it.
I recommend at least an ISDN line so that you can do other internet activities at the same time you are receiving real time feeds. I have 128KB ISDN dialup account, but a 64KB would do fine. 28.8KB is minimum and 56KB analog (you'll only get 33KB-45KB throughput) is recommended. I used a 28.8KB line for a while, and it worked OK, but my system was sluggish and it was slow accessing the internet for anything else. I use a 3COM Impact IQ external, which I also got from MegaDepot for $189.99.
I plan on upgrading to a minimum Pentium II 350 mainly for software development, but I am sure it will help my problems with RT3. The problems that I experience with RT3 are that if I have one or more very high volume stocks on L2 and graphs, the system slows down to where I get sluggish response changing active windows in RT3. I have actually had my system lock up twice where my mouse would not function, but the screen still updated with the real time feeds. For about the first 10-15 minutes when the market opens, I usually cannot trade on RT3 if I have high volume stocks in the L2 and graphs. It takes a while to get caught up with the data. ISDN has helped with these problems some, but the system just can't handle the amount of data I am receiving. I usually receive 60+MB in less than 7 hours.
The only so-called "idea" tools for finding plays that I currently know about are the Weasel, and RIM. RIM can be found at profsoftware.com, and is partnered with the Executioner at executioner.com with whom I trade. I hear many people are satisfied with both MB Trading and the Executioner. I have no opinion on the quality of the idea tools, yet. I do know that RIM is extremely fast, and cover 5,000+ stocks with many available studies.
I hope I covered everything.
Let me know what you do.
Good Luck,
Steven
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