Capn, I've been using RTIII for about a year now. I started with a 33KB dial-up, and a few months ago cable internet came to my town and I got that. RTIII is a completely different animal with cable, which delivers about 700KB. I have 64MB RAM, and that doesn't seem to be the limiting factor. As others have noted, it is at the open, when volumes are high and then, only on very busy stocks like Dell, or a stock with breaking news, that you get bottlenecks. Used to be, with the dial-up that the connection was the slowest link. Now, it's my processor, which is AMD 233. I'm not a tech wiz, but the "system monitor" program in Windows seems to reflect accurately when the cpu is overloaded. My screen fades out and the program stops responding. At these times, system monitor says cpu usage is 100%, so I take that to mean that it is not keeping up. At the same time, system monitor indicates that I have plenty of free memory. Cable internet is well worth it if you can afford it. It's only $50 where I am, plus it leaves your phone line free.
My brokerage has been AB Watley, but I will probably change soon. I'm wondering if anyone else has had a bad experience(s) with them. I'm more a position trader, so it is not so easy for me to switch between brokers. |
