A useful first test of EdgeDriven Gold Portfolio should tell you more than whether its final balance is positive. You need to know that the EA runs on the intended gold contract, that its sizing settings are correct, and that the report covers the history you asked it to test.
This guide takes you through that first run and the checks to make before drawing conclusions. Gold contains 20 fixed strategy modules using H1 and H4 data. You test them together as one EA.
1. Open the free demo in Strategy Tester
In your broker's desktop MT5 terminal, open Market and find EdgeDriven Gold Portfolio. Download its free demo. From the installed product in Navigator, choose Test to open Strategy Tester with that EA selected. MQL5's demo-testing guide also explains the download and testing workflow.
Use the tester, not an ordinary chart: the free Market demo cannot trade on an online demo-account or live-account chart. You do not need to fund an account to run a historical simulation.
Select your broker's gold instrument and H1 as the tester period. Check the contract behind the symbol name, including any broker suffix, rather than selecting another instrument with a similar name. The EA also needs H4 history. Its required position-accounting mode is hedging, not netting. In the tester's advanced account settings, check the risk-management model under Margin.
2. Start with one fixed configuration
The published Standard reference uses the following conditions. They are comparison settings, not a recommended deposit or a promise that another broker will reproduce the report.
| Setting | Standard reference |
|---|---|
| Market / tester period | XAUUSD / H1; H4 used internally |
| Test interval | January 2014 through June 2026 |
| Initial simulated deposit | USD 50,000 |
| Leverage / account mode | 1:100 / hedging |
| Modelling method | 1 minute OHLC |
| RiskProfile | Standard |
| PortfolioRiskScale | 100 |
| UseCompounding | false |
For a test covering the whole stated interval, enter 2014-01-01 as the start and 2026-07-01 as the end. MT5 excludes the end date. If your broker cannot supply that history, record the shorter interval actually tested; it is not a full-period reference comparison.
The value 100 in PortfolioRiskScale means 100% of the selected profile's sizing. It does not mean risking your entire account. UseCompounding=false uses the recorded starting-capital basis; enabling it changes the sizing basis to current equity. Keep it off for this comparison.
Run a single test with optimization disabled. In this tester run, check that TradingEnabled=true and EmergencyStop=false; otherwise your configuration may prevent new entries. These instructions do not ask you to change an EA already managing an account.
3. Check the run before checking the profit
Start the test, allow the necessary history to load, and inspect the tester Journal. Check for initialization failures, unavailable history, invalid-volume or stop errors, and insufficient margin. Record the product version and MT5 build with the report.
When it finishes, confirm the actual dates and trades. A completed progress bar alone does not establish that the intended test ran correctly. A quiet interval is also not, by itself, proof of a fault: the strategies need qualifying signals.
Gold rounds volume down to the broker's lot step. If the minimum lot would exceed a trade's sizing budget, it skips that trade. Repeated skips can materially change which strategies participate. Do not raise risk simply to remove the skips; keep the messages and investigate the contract size, minimum volume and account conditions.
4. Read the results together
Keep the trade count, profit factor, costs and balance/equity curves alongside net profit. Open losses matter even before a position closes, so do not use the balance curve alone to assess drawdown.
For any drawdown percentage, retain the exact report label and its accompanying money amount. The published Gold evidence distinguishes drawdown relative to an equity peak from drawdown relative to initial capital; those percentages answer different questions.
The reference uses one-minute OHLC and reports 78% history quality. It is not a real-tick or live record. A separate real-tick run on your broker's available data may be useful, but label it as a different test rather than expect an identical curve.
5. Investigate differences before changing inputs
If the result differs from the reference, begin with the version, dates, modelling method and risk inputs. Then compare the gold contract, spread, commission, swap, margin and history timestamps. A different H1/H4 bar structure or missing history can change the signals as well as the fills.
Do not keep changing several inputs until the headline profit looks similar. Preserve the first report and change one identified condition at a time. After understanding the reference comparison, run a separate simulation with the account conditions you intend to evaluate, including its deposit, currency, leverage and costs.
Save the report, input settings and relevant Journal messages. If something remains unexplained, send those details through the product's MQL5 Comments or Messages, with credentials and unnecessary account identifiers removed. A specific mismatch is much easier to investigate than a profit figure on its own.
The free demo evaluates historical behavior under your test conditions. It does not establish future profitability, and neither a sizing budget nor a historical drawdown is a guaranteed maximum loss.
