THE PROBLEM: When attempting to add the TAS Indicators to the chart, the Sierra Chart platform becomes slow and sometimes inactive. This page explains solutions to the problems of: High CPU usage, Inactive platform interface. The user interface of Sierra Chart becoming inactive for a noticeable period of time. Dialog windows, such as the Chart Studies window, not appearing or not appearing right away. Excessive memory use. Charts Reloading Often.
THE CAUSE: Sierra, by default, loads a ton of bars onto a chart around 500-1500 bars. During adding of TAS Indicators on the chart, it calculates and loads a lot of calls over the course of all those bars to our TAS Files. This cause the interface to be inactive since it needs to completely finish the whole historical data calculation before it needs to recalculates when a new bar appears. This happens mostly on lower timeframes.
There are many possible reasons for all of these issues. This pages option lists the known conditions/options which can cause these issues and provides the solution in each case.
THE CURE: Below are the possible options that will help in resolving this issues. If the solutions listed below to reduce CPU usage and lessen the times when the user interface is inactive, are still not solving the problem, then run additional instances of Sierra Chart. For instructions to do this, refer to Using DTC Server for Data and Trading in Another Sierra Chart Instance.
Your computer should be using a minimum of a quad core CPU with 16 gigabytes of memory for the best performance. It is also important to use SSDs (Solid-state drives). Adding more memory to your system may also help. Intel Xeon processors are available with even more CPU cores.
For further details about solid-state drives, refer to use Solid State Drives.
If your computer is under very heavy load, and the user interface is often inactive or frozen and/or you cannot open any dialog windows (Example: Global Settings >> General Settings ), then the very first step is press the Escape (Esc) key on your keyboard and then disconnect from the data feed by selecting File >> Disconnect so you can work on resolving the problem.
NOTE: The lists below are reference from Sierra Chart Help/FAQs page.
- Option 1: CHANGE THE INTRADAY DATA STORAGE TIME UNIT
- Option 2: REDUCE 'DAYS TO LOAD'
- Option 3: CHANGE CHART UPDATE INTERVAL
- Option 4: LARGE DATA FILES
Option 1: CHANGE THE INTRADAY DATA STORAGE TIME UNIT
Using a larger Intraday Data Storage Time Unit will reduce storage space used for Intraday chart data, reduce the time to read chart data from the Intraday data file any time that occurs, such as when opening Chartbooks or changing the timeframe of the chart bars, and will speed up historical data downloads significantly when downloading Intraday data when using Data and Trading services that use the Sierra Chart historical data server.
To change the Intraday Data Storage Time Unit,
1. Select Global Settings >> Data/Trade Service Settings on the menu.
2. Set the Intraday Data Storage Time Unit to a setting higher than 1 Tick.
If you set the Intraday Data Storage Time Unit to 1 Minute, you will notice a dramatic improvement with chart loading and overall performance. Although you do not have to go as high as 1 Minute. A good balance would be to use a setting of 2 seconds.
After changing the Intraday Data Storage Time Unit, you may want to download all of the data again in the chart data file to get data at the higher timeframe per record. To do this, go to your chart and select Edit >> Delete All Data And Download.
Additionally, in the Global Settings >> Data/Trade Service Settings window, you may wish to reduce the Maximum Historical Intraday Days to Download setting from the default. For example, if it is 45 and you do not need that much data, you may want to reduce it to 10 in the case when you are downloading historical 1 Tick data. This will speed up the data downloading process.
Option 2: REDUCE 'DAYS TO LOAD'
Specifying too much data to load or loaded into one or more charts will increase the amount of time it takes for the chart data to load and for the studies on the chart to be calculated when there is a full recalculation of the studies.
The usual case which causes a full recalculation of studies is when the chart is opened as part of a Chartbook or study settings are changed.
To reduce the amount of days of chart data loaded into a chart,
1. Select Chart >> Chart Settings on the menu or just press the 'F5' Key.
2. Set the Use Number of Days to Load >> Days to Load setting to a smaller number.
NOTE: This issue primarily applies to Intraday charts. Not Historical charts. Although with Historical charts, if you are using studies on those charts that are time-consuming to calculate, then reducing the number of days in the Historical chart can reduce CPU usage.
Reducing the Days to Load will definitely decrease the amount of time it takes to load Intraday chart data.
Option 3: CHANGE CHART UPDATE INTERVAL
For charts that you know use a lot of CPU time it is recommended to use an independent Chart Update Interval for them.
Go to those charts and;
1. Select Chart >> Chart Settings
2. Select Advanced Settings. Set the Chart Update Interval to a nonzero value. We recommend using a range of 3000 to 5000 milliseconds.
Or what you can do is increase Global Settings >> General Settings >> Chart Update Interval to a higher value such as 5000, and in those charts that you want to update more frequently you can use a shorter Chart Update Interval for those.
Very large data files will cause long load times when you open a chart.
To reduce the size of files automatically,
1. Select Global Settings
2. Select Data/Trade Service Settings
3. Select Data File Management on the menu. For complete details, refer to Data File Management.
If using a Tick by Tick Data Configuration, this will cause larger data files.
STILL NEED HELP? Create a support ticket by emailing the Help Desk team at Help@CandidCommodities.com.
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