[eurotrader]

You have been very fortunate v101. I am curious, what video cards do you have in your Mac and how old is it? I have a Mac Pro with 8gb of ram and dual Radeon X1900XT video cards which is around 21/2 years old now . I also run VMWare with Windows XP Pro. Unfortunately my experience has been less than satisfactory. I have 4 monitors and run the charting software on the Mac side on 3 with no problems. Unfortunately the performance on the remaining monitor running in Windows XP has been crap. After much research it appears that there is a driver issue with the Radeon X1900XT cards which basically aren't supported by either VMWare or Parallels. No drivers have been provided to correct the problem. None of this is a problem if you have Nvidea cards installed. I also have the exact same problem on my Mac Book Pro laptop which unfortunately also has a Radeon video card. If anyone has a solution to this I would certain be interested to hear.

[sevensa]

Originally Posted by eurotrader »

You have been very fortunate v101. I am curious, what video cards do you have in your Mac and how old is it? I have a Mac Pro with 8gb of ram and dual Radeon X1900XT video cards which is around 21/2 years old now . I also run VMWare with Windows XP Pro. Unfortunately my experience has been less than satisfactory. I have 4 monitors and run the charting software on the Mac side on 3 with no problems. Unfortunately the performance on the remaining monitor running in Windows XP has been crap. After much research it appears that there is a driver issue with the Radeon X1900XT cards which basically aren't supported by either VMWare or Parallels. No drivers have been provided to correct the problem. None of this is a problem if you have Nvidea cards installed. I also have the exact same problem on my Mac Book Pro laptop which unfortunately also has a Radeon video card. If anyone has a solution to this I would certain be interested to hear.

Can't you replace graphics cards on Macs? If the problem is with Radeon and they don't have a solution, but there are no issues with Nvidea, why don't you get a Nvidea card?

[eurotrader]

Hi Sevensa. Yep thought of that. Unfortunately upon researching this idea I found that I can not use the new Nvidea cards in a Mac Pro over 2 years old - bummer. So, that leaves me with a Mac which is sub-standard in running either VMWare or Parallels. So, I've decided to trade in the old MacPro for a new i7 iMac to everything with the exception of trading. For trading I have a built a new Windows PC, as much as I hate Windows!

[sunilrohira]

eurotrader -
I have a newer imac which doesn't have the Radeon graphics card, I have the one screen with the imac, and then have a 23" in addition, no issues, no problems, but running out of real - estate on my screens, Need additional room for charts, as I like to have various time frames and follow them. My mac-book pro is has NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, as well as a 9600GT with 512 MB of ram, and I can run 2 displays on this just fine, and trade from this as well. I have been running with a total of 4 screens, 2 with the iMAC, and 2 with the mac pro. But the setup is annoying me, as I have to keep switching computers, etc. etc.

I have heard of problems with running the Radeon cards, and unfortunately not sure what can be done about this.

I emailed VMWARE asking them if they have any reports, or performance docs showing a mac pro running with 8 monitors. I have been hearing a few guys running with thinkorswim for the mac, and one trader i know has a mac pro with 8 30" displays running, talk about a sweet setup, but very $$$ each 30" display is like 1800.00

Also ATI Radeon HD 5970, was released last month, and supports up to 6 monitors from one card!! They are looking to get it for the mac also, but not sure of the time line.


My thoughts at this point are to see what VMWARE says, as I like to run winblows this way... I mean windows.. and if they support this, I was going to pick up a newer/used mac-pro and load it up to support 8 monitors.

I will post the progress

[eurotrader]

Thanks Sunilrohira. Yes, unfortunately if you have a Mac Pro older than 2 years and made the mistake of kitting it out with the Radeon cards at the time you are basically stuck. Newer model Macs (younger than 24-18 months) seem not to have the video card driver issues which only seemed to affect the Radeon cards anyway. Interesting to note that there are no video card options on the latest iMacs; its either Radeon or Radeon. Since it will probably be a long time into the future before the software writers get off their butts and start writing Mac/Universal code for trading software, maybe having a dedicated PC for trading isn't so bad (as much as it sticks in my throat to say it). I've loaded Windows 7 onto this one so will be interesting to see if Microsoft has actually learned anything when it comes to OS stability, etc. The Macs are dedicated to everything else.

[charles1]

I would say to consider a windows machine. I personally use TOS on my Mac Powerbook for the whole shabang, but TOS is the only front end that I found to be Mac friendly. Windows has the upper hand when it comes to trading in terms of variety and flexibility. As for what OS I would stick to XP just for stability sake and ease of use. On a personal level I really like TOS, but I know there's more out there I'm just new to trading, but old school to technology. Hope that was helpful. Good luck.

[sunilrohira]

I dont own a Mac and the above post was from someone else under my name.

[mattz]

This platform should work on MAC for both the down-loadable version and the web version.
The name of the platform is QST (quick screen trading)