I used TradeStation intensively (8 hours a day) for 3 years then moved to MC. Never looked back for one moment.

But I wanted to say: Range bars definitely work very well with MC and IB. I used to use range or monentum bars in TS, now MC with IB produces the same charts with only very minor differences which would be insgnificant for most users. Unless you have a specific need regarding bid/ask data then both range bars and volume bars are fine. The great thing is they do not slow down when the market moves fast. Volume charts are also fine, it is only tick charts that are not available as data is sent in packets not tiick by tick. Personally I find that to be a fine way to deliver the data, I don't need my PC to be choking on sub-millisecond packets. You will be missing the split between volume on up ticks vs volume on down ticks, i.e. there is only the total volume. But that total volume is "accurate" - possibly more so than TS because it is delivered on time.

interesting observations...my problem with TS has been when the market starts really cruising it locks up or "lags behind"...Sometimes it requires a complete refresh of the chart, which takes a long time (for some reason I never fully understand). And whoa to the trader that gets the "waiting for symbol attributes" error....Now my charts have a couple of resource intensive things on there (Pivot lines that redraw etc.) but cmon....

when this has happened in the past and ts starts loading again, you are pretty much dead in the water and then invariably you have to reboot...I am convinced it is my own problem so i flashed my hard drive and then even upgraded to a quad core and 16gb of ram, but still get the same problems

Ill try the IB data feed simultaneously with TS to see what i get. there are some things i really like about MC....simple things like the way the cursor displays price and time on the axes, automatic tracking on multiple charts, Volume profile that actually works etc. Its those really simple things and real chart trading that sold me.

Since I will probably continue to run Ninja I may just keep the TS account and feed to run them (MC and Ninja) both (unless i can do that with IB?) at the same time.

SPTrading 

I used TradeStation intensively (8 hours a day) for 3 years then moved to MC. Never looked back for one moment. But I wanted to say: Range bars definitely work very well with MC and IB. I used to use range or monentum bars in TS, now MC with IB produces the same charts with only very minor differences which would be insgnificant for most users. Unless you have a specific need regarding bid/ask data then both range bars and volume bars are fine. The great thing is they do not slow down when the market moves fast. Volume charts are also fine, it is only tick charts that are not available as data is sent in packets not tiick by tick. Personally I find that to be a fine way to deliver the data, I don't need my PC to be choking on sub-millisecond packets. You will be missing the split between volume on up ticks vs volume on down ticks, i.e. there is only the total volume. But that total volume is "accurate" - possibly more so than TS because it is delivered on time.

got it consider my offer revoked...

Big Mike 

I've never used TradeStation, and as such - have never used their closed forums. I know your intention is good, and to help others... but... As a forum owner and defender of intellectual property created by users, so on and so forth, I just want to say that if these systems are meant to be NOT freely available then please do not "load up" (grab, take, insert whatever word) on these with the purpose of posting them on NexusFi (formerly BMT). If they are meant to be free, then no harm of course. Thx, Mike

It's been more than a year since I left TS...

I am still registered on their forum, I wouldn't worry too much about them cutting you off....

Amibroker is definitely the fastest backtester out there, now untouchable with its multi thread support and extremely stable.

TheTrend 

I'd like to compare this with Amibroker which seems quicker, much cheaper and more robust from what I've read, didn't test it yet.

greenroomhoo 

interesting observations...my problem with TS has been when the market starts really cruising it locks up or "lags behind"

I believe (pretty certain) TradeStation is a single-threaded application in its entirety. This means all charts, all feeds, all processing, all everything runs on a single core on your computer. Most modern CPU's in the last several years have 4 cores or more. That means 3 out of 4 are idle when using TradeStation, for the most part.

MultiCharts is multi-threaded. Every chart runs in its own thread, as does the DOM, etc. For backtesting, it uses multiple threads.

A user running a small number of charts or not many indicators on those charts may never notice a difference or any kind of problem. But a user running multiple charts with many indicators, especially indicators that calculate on each new tick, would certainly notice a difference on a single-threaded vs. multi-threaded application.

FWIW, NinjaTrader is single-threaded when it comes to charting, but is multi-threaded for backtesting. There is an upcoming webinar with Ray (CEO NinjaTrader) on October 4th and it is aimed at being highly technical with a lot of emphasis on "what is to come" (NT 8), so we'll see what he says on this subject.

Mike