Strategy Tester - visual behaviour
Hi
I have done extensive testing on the back tester and none of the report data comes out in real time but the visual chart itself does run correctly. I think the code is running several tasks and they have different priorities. The slowest output is the journal and I have sat waiting to view print results for minutes after the end of the test. The white equity graph comes out in spurts 3 or 4 results at a time. Of course this all depends how fast your computer is and gets worse if your EA does many trades at once. It's still better than not having it though.
Hi
I have done extensive testing on the back tester and none of the report data comes out in real time but the visual chart itself does run correctly. I think the code is running several tasks and they have different priorities. The slowest output is the journal and I have sat waiting to view print results for minutes after the end of the test. The white equity graph comes out in spurts 3 or 4 results at a time. Of course this all depends how fast your computer is and gets worse if your EA does many trades at once. It's still better than not having it though.
Understand what you're saying (especially having to wait for the journal to complete its build), but feel that this is not the whole story for me in this case.
If I run an EA in a visual demo on one PC (an ordinary laptop), the graph appears in something that the casual observer would consider real-time synchronicity with the rest of the test.
If I run the very same EA in a similar visual demo on a fairly fast server, the graph screen remains blank (apart from the x-axis being labelled 1-31, when in fact there are a years worth of transactions to come) until either the test finishes (at which stage it pops up in one go), or until I hit the pause key (in which case part of it pops up in one go).
CB
Hi
It sounds like the computer is cashing the visual output but it might be that MT4 has the calculation of the run at a higher priority than the display and because the computer is fast there is not enough time between calculations to give the display task time to get anything out until the primary task is finished. This would be my guess.
A 'Pause' button in the Strategy Tester and Optimizer would be an excellent addition in MT5 so that one wouldn’t lose previous calculations and start all over again from the beginning again if there was the need to pause it for some reason like the computer ( hopefully temporarily) stalled due to overload etc.
Doug, If you put it in Visual mode you can pause it in MT4.
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Hi all,
I don't use the strategy tester all that often, and whilst preparing a demo for one of our EAs, have noticed (and it may only be on certain computers), that when performing a visual test that the graph (and trades) are not built in real time - ie. do not appear until the test is complete, at which stage they are painted all in one go. If I hit the pause button, the info will be painted to that point at which stage it will stop again until either the test is complete or paused once more. The speed slider seems not to be very linear either - at 31 its going quite slow and at 32 (max) the test flies by far too fast to see.
Anyone any ideas?
Ta.
CB