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Pastimes : Computer Learning -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dan Duchardt who wrote (22975)	10/21/2001 7:32:28 PM
From: bosquedog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110652

I want to optimize my system for trading. I have a couple of different data suppliers streaming data all day long that must be processed in real time Who are your data feeds? 350 mhz is just not enough to handle streaming quotes from some of the brokerage firms (Schwab in particular). I am currently using a 1.4 ghz chip overclocked to 1.577 . My older machine used a 733 mhz chip and was always pegged at 100% usage by Norton.

To: Dan Duchardt who wrote (22975)	10/22/2001 1:36:29 PM
From: PMS Witch	Respond to of 110652

It looks like you have sufficient RAM. On such systems, the workload rarely reaches levels requiring disk space substituting for memory. One indication of a ‘RAM rich’ system, as you have observed, the swap file remains empty. Had the decline of memory prices been synchronised with the increases of software resource demands, disk and memory swapping schemes would not have been needed. Unfortunately, this was not how systems developed, and consequently, many people are running complex software with insufficient hardware resources. A few, I’m sure, have augmented their systems to point beyond what their software and workload require. I suspect that a few people have systems that are not well balanced for the work they wish to perform. It’s a matter of matching the systems’ strength to the workload bottle-necks. Database programs are often disk intense, while CAD may require considerable CPU cycles. Image editing or publishing packages often require huge RAM, while games push sound and display capabilities to the limit. Connection speed, more than the system, affect Internet browsing. You posted that your processor often runs at 100%. You provided no evidence of memory shortages. I’m sure the majority of PII systems running at 350Mhz have 128 meg memories, or less. The evidence suggests to me that you may have tipped the balance to be too heavy on memory and too light on processing. See #reply-15556155 Lets look at what can be done with the current hardware… Your first step, setting ConservativeSwapfileUsage, seems correct. You must also implement the upper limit on cache to work around the flaw in Windows. Since you posted the URL of the Microsoft support page dealing with this issue, I’ll assume you know more about it than I do. The question now becomes one of how best to utilise the memory Windows doesn’t seem to need, use, or even want. Your plan on using it for a RAM disk seems reasonable. As you’ve posted, the limitations of the RAM disk driver supplied with Windows limits its usefulness considerably. XMSDSK provides an answer to these issues. I have no experience with the automatic XMSDSK installer. Installing manually is not difficult. Check #reply-15662119 and #reply-15206369 for details. Pay particular attention to getting the parameters correct, as they are necessary for Windows to run properly. Be sure to read the text files packaged with the program as later changes may contradict my earlier posts. You are correct when you posted that memory allocated to XMSDSK in not available to Windows. You are also correct to realise that a RAM disk does no good unless your system uses it. I’ve given suggestions on how to store temporary files, cookies, and assorted junk in the RAM disk. My choices were motivated by a desire to reduce disk accesses and the speed penalty they impose on my system while browsing the Internet. I do not have enough RAM to trigger the Windows cache bug, so I have no need to establish a cache upper boundary – although you do. From your post, I sense that your trading software is the greatest concern. Since I’m not familiar with the resource requirements and constraints associated with this package, I can’t offer any useful suggestions beyond observing that monitoring your system, as you have, should point you in the right direction eventually. The registry is stored in the two files you indicated USER.DAT and SYSTM.DAT and in theory, restoring these files restores the registry, but I don’t advise it. I save the registry using the Save Button, found in Information, Tools, Registry Checker. I recommend using SCANREG /RESTORE in DOS to restore the registry. Many, many posts on SI deal with using REGEDIT directly or provide links to sites offering tutorials. I want to point out that working with the registry is NOT one of those skills one acquires most easily by jumping in first and looking around later. REGEDIT makes changes instantly, permanently, without warning, or giving you the opportunity of changing your mind: There’s NO undo. Cheers, PW

To: Dan Duchardt who wrote (22975)	10/22/2001 5:16:12 PM
From: Nick Morvay	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110652

Dan, it would seem to me that your time (equaling money) would be better spent trading instead of spinning your wheels on the system. I went through a similar experience and found that my trading was impacted by system problems. With that in mind, would it not be better to do some basic things that you will eventually going to have to bite the bullet on? For example, consider moving to Win2K or XP to clearup all the memory issues. No configuring problems with 3rd party memory managers, ramdisk issues, extra overhead, program compatability etc. This will also provide you with a much more "robust" system because each program will run in its own memory space, therefore, if one program should crash it will not take down or corrupt data of any other program running. The P2 350 is probably close to maxing out as it sounds like you have a lot of programs and data feeds running continuosly. My prior trading system, a PPro200 (overclocked to 240) had similar problems. The amount of money and time it required to increase performance another 20% (which is all it could attain), in the end the band-aid was not worth it. I finally bit the bullet and went to a dually. Something to think about. Regards, Nick

To: Dan Duchardt who wrote (22975)	11/8/2001 10:59:52 PM
From: Dan Duchardt	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 110652

RAM A few weeks have passed, and I am still chasing my memory issues. I have not yet even attempted a ramdrive, but I have found that with W98 there is no way my machine is going to be happy with more than 512M of free ram. With any more than that, even if I limit Windows to 512M and set limits on the cache file size there are some things that caue problems. In particular, Worldbook Millenium 2000 absolutely will not run with excess RAM in the box. I'm willing to pay for W2000, but I hear that it is even slower than W98, and that concerns me. If slower means that my processor is going to be maxed out, then I have gained nothing. In what sense is W2000 slower than W98? In the course of trying to get a clear picture of the alternatives, I have come across a couple of people who swear that W98 cannot manage more than 128M of RAM anyway (256M maybe for SE and ME). I expect there is some basis to their claim, but I cannot see evidence for it on my machine, and it makes no sense in the context of what I have read about Windows virtual machines. With 512M in my machine, I see appropriate looking numbers in System Monitor for Allocated Memory (just a bit less than 256M with my typical trading set up; but I can open enough programs to push it beyond 256M), and Unused Physical Memory to suggest that all programs are resident in physical RAM. I see absolutely no swapfile activity. I do see Page faults and some Page-ins, but few if any Page outs. It seems to me the virtual memory should be mapped to any physical memory Windows can recognize, but one person I talked to is adamant that most of the memory is just a "big buffer" that W98 cannot manage, which implies to me that the contents of physical memory must be rearranged in order for Windows 98 to function. Is this for real? Does anyone have the straight scoop on this issue, and a reference where I can see it documented? Besides all that, I am frequently getting memory errors when I boot up. I often see the memory test stop at 384M. Some times it jumps from 384M to 512M without running the numbers in between. And sometimes it test all 512M and is perfectly happy. I have reseated the memory several times, so I don't think it is that simple. If it failed consistently, I could easily find the bad module, but I'm not even sure I have one. Any ideas? Dan