[Tasuki]

Folks, I just tried to use Tradestation's new matrix with its long-awaited sim-trading. My advice--don't touch it with a ten foot pole. Reasons:
1) the buttons for buy/sell/OSO/OCO work SOMETIMES. Obviously unacceptable. Twice I was in a trade and clicked the "sell market" button, and it just failed to work. I was on the phone at the time with Tradestation tech support, and they couldn't provide any explanation. Actually, I think I can---Tradestation has overbuilt the matrix, and the coding for it is antiquated and convoluted, making it prone to errors.
2) The OSO function failed to work one time out of three. Obviously unacceptable.
3) The Trademanager window turned strange colors for no reason. At one point, the entire window turned magenta. TS tech help could not explain. Their only answer was to say that the window had become corrupted and told me to delete that window and create a fresh one. That was also their answer for the errors in the matrix.
4) This one is unbelievable, but it happened while I was talking to TS techs---the matrix put me in a live trade in the symbol SPY when I was supposed to be in "sim" mode and, unbelievably, I hadn't even touched the matrix. I think I've figured this one out as well---the new matrix is so slow that the instructions I was following from the TS techs were stored in the computer and executed several minutes later.
5) This brings me to another problem---the new matrix, with its sim feature, is so complex that it slows down your entire computer, even moreso that it did before. I've got a screaming fast computer, but admittedly I have several dozen charts in multiple workspaces. Prior to the new build, TS 8.3, build 1631, I noticed a tiny amount of slowing in very fast markets, but now the slowing has quadrupled. Actually, it's probably more like ten times slower.

Altogether, I recommend using Tradestation for charting, which is (IMHO) the best in the business, but I'd strongly recommend placing your trades elsewhere. Like so many people on TradersLab, I recommend Infinity brokerage and their Infinity AT platform. Fast, reliable, elegantly simple.