MultiCharts: Trading Software for Automated Trading and Backtesting

Is there a limit to the number of bars that can be loaded?

Here is the situation :

Strategy that gets signal from Data2 which is a 7 minute bar. Entry comes from Data1 which is a 1 minute bar to simulate intrabar on the 7 min.

Feeding chart with TS Forex data. Data is back to 10/21/2002.

When I try to load MC from today back through 11/1/2002 the 1 min data stops around 7/2004 showing just over 1Million 1 Min bars. The 7 Min data goes all the way back to 11/1/2002.

I can slide the 'window' for the data all around, for instance if I move the end date back by a year to 7/23/2006 (with start date still 11/1/2002) then the 1 Min bars go back to around 8/1/2003. Interestingly still just over 1 Million 1 minute bars.

Any thoughts, thanks.

There is no such limitation. I loaded 3.5 million bars. What is your RAM size? Did you monitor available memory in Task Manager?

Thanks Andrew for checking.

The system the PC is a C2D running at 3GHz with 4 GB of ram though running 32 bit XP-Pro so not all the ram is available.

Maybe a little more detail might help.

This occured after an optimization. The optimization period was 11/1/2003 - 6/30/2006. The trouble happened after the optimization had finished and I then went to open up the date ranges to see the In Sample and Out of Sample results.

I just tried to load it again. This time one data stream (1 Min GBPUSD 11/1/2002 - 7/27/2007) Still can only load just over 1 Million bars. With this request the chart data begins 7/24/2004. If I change the request to 7/27/2006 the chart data goes back to 8/18/2003.

I just repeated with EURUSD and have similar results - chart data begins on 7/7/2004 with and end date of today.

Also, just tried with @ES. Similar results. As I watched the quote count increment as soon as it crossed the 1 milion mark it stopped loading and brought chart onto screen.

hmmm

pic of task manager is attached. don't think it a memory issue.

It turns out that there is a limitation which restricts downloading over 1 million bars. To overcome this limitation you need to go to registry, make a search and and change the key MaxBarCount = 1000000 to MaxBarCount = 10000000 (i.d. change 1 million to 10 million bars).

thats great news, thank you Marina.

works, thanks again

Would you explain what are these two registry value mean?

Would you explain what are these two registry value mean?

MaxMinuteIntervalInDays and MaxTickIntervalInDays are of no relevance for MultiCharts.

They are used in MCFX: since the data is continually requested and received these keys help to divide this continuous request into a number of smaller ones.

Where is the registry to change MaxBarCount located?
Thanks,
stork

Hello Stork,

To call up the Registry Editor, go to Start -> Run and type in 'regedit'.
In the editor window that will be brought up, go to HKEY_Current_ User\Software\TS Support\MultiCharts\Shaper - MaxBarCount. Double-click MaxBarCount and type in the required value.

Regards.