How to speed up your MetaTrader 4 terminal in 5 minutes?
Every trader knows that the MetaTrader 4 trading platform is periodically updated. Undoubtedly there are positive moments in it, but today let's talk about the disadvantages of such updates.
With each new version MetatTrader 4 becomes "heavier" and more demanding to computer resources. And if a trader uses the built-in strategy tester to test indicators and trading experts, the "weight" of MT4 can reach ten or more gigabytes.
High demand for PC resources creates a problem for traders who use VPS servers for testing EAs, reducing the number of terminals available for installation on the server.
All these problems lead to the fact that the trading terminal often freezes and slows down, taking up unacceptably much space on the hard drive.
How do you deal with it? How to speed up MetaTrader 4? Here are some simple tips on how to clean your MetaTrader 4 terminal to speed up its operation.
Quickly and automatically unload unnecessary MT4
1. Remove all unnecessary characters
First of all, it is necessary to optimize the operation of the terminal itself. To begin with, let's remove all the symbols that we don't use. The fact is that each symbol is updated in real time on every tick, which causes increased traffic and load on the PC.
To do this, right-click in the "Market Watch" window and choose "Hide All Symbols" from the drop-down menu.
In the "Market Watch" window there will be only those currency pairs whose charts are open in the terminal.
Turn off the news in the MT4 terminal
The next step is to disable news in the terminal. To do this, go to the settings and in the tab "Server" uncheck the "Allow news".
3. Reducing the history of quotes
To reduce the load on the terminal, we reduce the quotes history (if your Expert Advisor does not use it). To do this, go to the "Charts" tab in the terminal settings and set the required number of bars of history.
It is desirable to restart the terminal after all last procedures.
Clearing the terminal from unnecessary information by hand
Now let's move on to manual cleaning of the terminal. You can find various utilities on the resources that do it yourself, but you need to understand the very essence of the process, not to mention that an unfamiliar utility can clean the terminal "to a pulp".
The MetaTrader 4 trading terminal is designed so that it constantly accumulates a variety of data: tests, quotes, logs, and more.
An important point: always use different terminals for trading and for testing EAs and indicators. Residuals of tests of previous EAs can cause incorrect work of the current EA or change global variables.
Clean the terminal MetaTrader 4 can be done in two ways.
- The first way: complete removal and reinstallation. With this method, you must save the profiles, templates, indicators, scripts and advisors that you use to transfer them to the newly installed terminal.
- The second way: manually delete unnecessary data from the folders of the terminal. To do this, enter the "File" tab in the terminal and open the data directory.
In the window that appears, you will see all the folders of your MetaTrader 4 terminal.
4. Remove emails from mailboxes and unnecessary charts
Go to the folder history, find the folders mailbox (this is where the mailbox and all incoming information in the form of email messages is stored) and deleted (this is where the history of all charts opened and subsequently deleted by the trader is stored), and delete all files from them.
Next, open the logs folder. This is where the logs of the terminal for each day are stored. Delete them.
The next step is to open the MQL4 folder. There we delete files from the Logs folder (the history of log messages of Expert Advisors, indicators and scripts) and from the Files folder (sometimes saved statments are accumulated there, and some Expert Advisors may put their reports or charts screenshots there).
In the end, open the folder tester. In it, we also delete all files and folders history (messages as the history of the strategy tester Metatrader 4) and logs (this folder stores the logs of the strategy tester).
As you can see, all manipulations will not take even five minutes, but after that you will simply do not recognize your terminal and will enjoy its performance. And if you perform these operations periodically, you will forget about braking and freezing of your favorite MetaTrader 4 and speed up its work significantly.
Tell me please, Roman, do the deletions described in the section "cleaning the terminal from unnecessary information manually" affect the performance of the terminal? Or only on the amount of disk space occupied by the terminal?
I appreciate the answer in advance!
First of all, deleting unnecessary files frees up hard disk space. When testing indicators and Expert Advisors, a lot of logs, log files, etc. are accumulated, which not only take up space, but also somehow slow down the terminal. The terminal performance is mainly influenced by the operations described above - these are the functions that use traffic (news, quotes changing, etc.), as well as the number of indicators and Expert Advisors used. Each indicator or Expert Advisor uses a certain amount of memory for its work, which (not everyone knows about it) in MetaTrader 4 terminal is limited to 3GB regardless of the amount of RAM on your computer.
I see, thank you. Let me ask a couple more questions. Do you think that the calls of the EA for various data (such as AccountEquity(), OrderProfit() - well, there are a lot of them, I think the point is clear) substantially slow down the terminal's operation, or this slowdown can be neglected? Let's say, will there be a noticeable difference between a couple dozen and a couple hundred calls to these functions in one cycle of the EA? Similarly: does writing and reading global variables have a noticeable effect on performance?
Unfortunately, I'm not a professional MQL programmer and my knowledge is not deep enough to give you a detailed answer. Chat to here. The guys who do all this in practice will help you and tell you all the details.
Thanks, Roman, for the article (I have 5 terminals on VPS; I disabled news in them and reduced the quotes history - it seems they became easier) and for the answers (in particular, I went to http://forexsystemsru.com/yazyk-programmirovaniya-mql4-f72/I see a lot of interesting things there).
I read that you are trying your hand as an investor. I have been accepting funds for forex trading for several years now. Perhaps we could mutually benefit from working together. If you are interested, please send me your e-mail at additionald05-for@yahoo.com and I'll explain my offer in more detail. (Just in case: it's not a "give me money and I'll give you a thousand percent a year" kind of thing; it's five or seven percent a month, and the money stays in your account).