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Can I
sort my results by fitness or NetProfit?
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How
does licensing work?
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Can you see my strategy?
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How many PCs
can I run Optimax on?
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Can
Optimax take advantage of multiple CPUs?
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Will
my optimization run any slower on a single-CPU machine?
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I'm getting
a DLL error - why?
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Optimax
isn't displaying any results - why?
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I'm not in the USA. Can
I still use Optimax?
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Yes, but you must use US date (mm/dd/yyyy) and decimal (#,###.##) formats on the PC on which you install it.
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Does Optimax
work with TS8?
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Optimax works equally well with both TS8 and TS7.
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Does Optimax
work with TS2000i?
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We are currently testing Optimax with TS2000i. We
hope to support it soon. Please send us an email if you would
like to be notified when Optimax is available for TS2000i.
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Does
the Exhaustive Search feature in Optimax offer any benefits over
TradeStation optimizations?
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In our opinion yes there are quite a few
advantages to using Optimax for exhaustive searches:
1) With Optimax you can see and keep all of the equity curves
and performance results from the entire run. In TradeStation you
can only see numbers (no curves, and only keep X (top) results
and we've found that if you make X very large TradeStation will
run into problems and not display the results at all or it will
crash. This is also a drawback if you want to sort your results
by other factors after you're done - you don't have them all.
With Optimax you do.
2) Using the ISpace indicators in Optimax
you can evaluate your results in a way that you can't in
TradeStation - you can quickly and graphically see areas of
stability (and instability) in your run.
3) Using Optimax you can enable Price
Modulation and greatly lessen your chances of curve-fitting. In
our opinion this is an absolute necessity for any optimization.
4) Optimax keeps history until you delete it. You can go back
and review your results at any time in the future. In
TradeStation you lose it.
5) You can use Optimax to keep notes about each optimization and
also keep a copy of your code for the run by right-clicking the
run in the Run History pane and pasting into the TXT or RTF
files. This lets you go back and reproduce your results at any
time in the future if you change your strategy and get worse
results.
Regarding speed, the optimization should take about the same
amount of time. If you turn the refresh rate way down (or off)
in Optimax, or if you have a dual-CPU machine then I doubt that
you would notice any difference at all.
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Can I
sort my results by fitness or NetProfit?
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Yes. In the main Optimax window, right-click the
Inputs grid and select Open
Detail Canvas. From there you can sort and graph the
results. To read all about this feature in our user
guide, click
here.
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How
does licensing work?
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When you sign up, we'll give you a customer key. Simply enter it
into the registration screen and you're done! Optimax
automatically connects to our servers to determine your access
level and payment status. No monthly license keys to obtain and no
hassles!
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Can you see my strategy?
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No. Optimax runs only on your PC, and does not transmit any
information to the Internet other than your customer key.
It does not send us any information about you or your
strategies.
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How many PCs can
I run Optimax on?
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You can run it on as many PCs as you have licenses; one license
is required per PC.
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Can
I still use Optimax to view my optimization history if I stop
subscribing?
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At present we offer Level 1 access
for free, so if you stop subscribing you will still be able to
use Optimax level 1 to view your history. If in the future we
stop offering level 1 for free, all of the Optimax files are
Excel-compatible and the equity curves are cached as GIFs - you
would still be able view your history using Windows Explorer and
Excel.
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Can
Optimax take advantage of multiple CPUs?
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Optimax runs as a separate process, so it can use a separate CPU
from the one TradeStation is using. TradeStation still performs
the strategy evaluation, so an individual strategy test does not
run any faster. However, because Optimax uses smart searches,
the effective speed of TradeStation's optimization increases
phenomenally.
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Will
my optimization run any slower on a single-CPU machine?
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That depends on how you have Optimax configured. Optimax will
use some cycles to display the progress of the optimization, so
theoretically processing would be fastest with multiple CPUs.
However, if you slow your refresh rate down sufficiently, you
should not notice any degradation in TradeStation's speed.
Remember, this is a balance; every Optimax cycle is worth
millions of TradeStation cycles. You should be happy at almost
any refresh setting just as long as you don't let Optimax hog
the entire CPU.
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I'm
getting a DLL error - why?
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You can get a DLL error in these cases:
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if you start the optimization in TS before Optimax. (You must start the optimization in Optimax first.) |
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if you stop the optimization in Optimax before TS (You must stop the optimization in TS before Optimax.) |
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if you call a OMX_GetParm function with a name that doesn't exist in the Inputs section of the Optimization Settings window. (Make sure the names match, and there are the same number of Inputs in both places) |
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if you stop the optimization in TS and select "Accept best solution so far." (Select "Restore original inputs" instead.) |
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if you have a value other than zero in the IterationNum input in your strategy without having Optimax in "optimization running" mode |
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if you have a value other than zero in the Generation/Individual inputs in your strategy without having, in Optimax, the associated run highlighted in the run history pane |
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if you have a value other than zero in all three input fields
IterationNum/Generation/Individual at once |
Have you read the entire user's guide and
tried the sample optimizations? If you follow the steps outlined there, you should not get any DLL errors.
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Optimax
isn't displaying any results - why?
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Optimax may not display any results under these
circumstances:
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if your strategy doesn't
generate any trades during the given time period with the
specified inputs. Try increasing the length of time over
which you are optimizing, or adjust your input ranges to
be more likely to generate trades. |
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if any processes that
generate intensive hard-drive activity run during the
optimization. Disable any scheduled disk defragmentation
and backup software programs before starting the
optimization. Programs such as Diskeeper and Second Copy
will degrade optimization speed and can prevent Optimax
from receiving the optimization results from TradeStation. |
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