I actually run a M2 MacBook Pro myself now.
Optuma runs well but one setting I had to change was to stop Optuma from downloading data in parallel, which seemed to make it very slow while it was updating data. See the image below. This will be on by default.
As far as RAM is concerned, 16GB is the minimum.
All the best
Mathew
Hi Thomas,
I own a MacBook Pro M2 Max with 32GB Ram running Parallels 19 Pro Edition.
If you wish to pump up the RAM, youāll need the Pro not Standard edition. This will then allow you to allocate up to 128.
From my personal testing, I found a good bump in speed going from 8 to 16, but when I tried to 24 I found the time didnāt change much.
If you are using generally though, the speed wonāt vary too much I was purely testing to see the difference.
If I open the ASX200 then using arrow keys to scroll through front to back, 8GB was 63s, 16 and 24 was 45s.
As Mathew mentioned runs really well, and I wish I took the 64GB ram option, but even with 32GB and heaps of apps open (currently 15 open), and Parallels set with 10 Processor and 24GB I find everything works exceptionally well. Less than 1GB being used in Swap.
Itās a beast and while I havenāt tested large watchlists like youāve mentioned as a speed test comparison for you, to open ASX 200 under symbol list just default chart, to load is 11sec and to return screen ready to go another 7sec, so in total was only 18sec. If you try the same on your Windows machine might give you an insight to a speed comparison.
Mathew, thanks for the tip on that setting, will give it a try.
All the best with your new machine!!
Cheers
Scott
Hi Mathew and Scott,
Thank you very much for your efforts.
I think I will try the Mac Studio when hopefully a new version with the M3 chip is available in the summer.
I think I will set it up with 64 GB RAM. Better safe than sorry. The RAM issue is becoming more and more of a bottleneck.
Thanks,
Thomas
Hi Thomas,
As a matter of interest, whatās the time comparison on your current windows machine to open ASX 200 to be fully loaded using default simple chart?
Not sure how familiar you are with Macs, but their unified memory is a lot more efficient that Windows machines from everything Iāve read and experienced.
M3 is enticing, but dollar / value, I always grab the refurbished models, this time around I saved over $1500 at purchase, for virtually a new machine.
All the best, cheers
Scott
Hi Optuma Team,
Perhaps you can help me answer Scottās question about the time it takes for a Windows computer to open the ASX 200 to fully load with the default simple chart.
As I have not subscribed to the Australian database, I cannot test it.
Thanks,
Thomas
Donāt hate me but it is much faster on my Windows PC both in Optuma and the raw Optuma engine. The new Quant work I am doing processes an S&P 500 model in around 23 seconds on the Mac and 16 seconds on Windows.
I think Apple makes some great laptops etc. I chose the Air when they came out in 2010(ish) because it was so great to travel with. I got the M2 Pro because Iām keen to see how it works now. We also have an M2 Mac Mini for Video editing.
The benefit that Apple has right now with the M Series is that they achieve better speed with similar specs (due to the reduced instruction set of the CPU). The massive disadvantage is that you can not upgrade the RAM and the prices they charge for the similar RAM and storage is crazy.
But todayā¦ unless you are doing video editing a Microsoft Surface laptop or a Dell XPS desktop is a better solution if Optuma is your primary application.
The point is that if you buy a Mac because you want a Mac then Optuma will run fine on it with Parallels. But donāt buy it because you want Optuma to run better. Also, after many years of using PCs, prepare for frustration as keys are different and the muscle memory to CTRL-C takes a long time to change.
I want to love the Macs, they are safer to use in regard to viruses and phishing scams, and I love the integration with other Apple products, but there are compromises you have to be prepared for.
Hi Mathew,
Thank you for your efforts and the time you took to run the performance tests.
I think I will stick with a Windows PC when I buy a new one this year. For the Quant engine, the speed at which the tests are run is of great importance.
Thanks a lot!
Thomas
Hi Mathew,
Thank you for taking the time to do a comparison, greatly appreciated, by the looks of it thatās a descent speed difference if using Optuma is your main work application.
What are your thoughts moving forward should Windows do a native version of ARM once Delphi supports ARM also. Would you expect the speed performance to improve, currently Parallels 19 does a great job but itās still not running it natively. You educated me on a post back in 2021 about future timeframes, howās it all tracking, can you share any update?
As I often use my laptop on battery mode when travelling, battery life is a massive game changer on these new machines, so Iāll stick with losing a few seconds of performance vs running a windows laptop, Iām assuming the time of 23 sec was on the desktop?
While not being able to upgrade memory I know is sore point for many users, the cost of life I believe cannot be compared to, time is money after all, and Iām sure your M2 MacPro will run just as fast in three or six years from now, just like your old MacBook Air.
The muscle memory isnāt too hard to get used to, Iāve used both Mac and PC fairly equally over 30 years and something that we easily adjust to.
Keep up the great work, Iām only starting to get into the using Optumaās scanning ie Signal & Trade Tester but with my limited skills have been really impressed. Back to learning more coding.
AI for trading morning forwardā¦ Interesting times ahead!
Thanks again!
Cheers
Scott
There are a couple of things that need to happen for us to deliver Optuma on a Mac or Windows Arm.
The time to do that needs to be balanced with our other developments.
The primary focus for us is to get Optuma in the browser. Then platforms do not matter. All the processing will happen on our servers. This is why I am working at shaving milli-seconds off scans and tests.
The core of the project is an engine that does all the heavy lifting. Itās based on an elastic model that can ramp up extra servers as needed.
In front of that we have a web application that will be very similar to Optuma now expecpt that Iām making it simpler to use. Iāve watched where people struggle with the features and Iām trying to improve that. Iām aiming to address 80% of the use cases in the web app. For the reamining 20%, there is always the windows application which we will continue to maintain.
As resources allow, weāll add Mobile Apps and also Optuma 3 that uses the same engine, either locally or on the server.
I assure you that the time taken for all of this is frustrating me more than anyone else, but I have to make sure the foundation is rock solid because so much will be built on top of it.
Iām committed to the first beta being in place by Q4 no matter what. I canāt aford to let it go on any longer. Iāll be asking for feedback from people before hand so if you have not already signed up, go to app.optuma.com and register.
Thanks for the insight again, love the dedication and Iām sure there have been and will be many more all-nighters! lol.
Browser version definitaley has it advantages, being able to pickup an ipad on the go and still look at the charts would be pretty cool!
Iām also old school and appreciate the power of having a local installed app that I donāt need to worry about internet speeds. Being able to open the laptop anywhere is super powerful as a non professional user, but also understand majority of your users this wouldnāt be the case.
Thanks for the feedback link, will be sure to check it out.
cheers
Scott
A quick update: weāve recently been testing Optuma on the latest ARM-based Microsoft Surfaces and there is known issue with random graphics flickering. We are currently investigating, so in the meantime we recommend avoiding the use of Optuma on ARM systems.
Hi Darren,
Thanks for the update!!
Iām assuming thatās windows only ARM based machines, as I havenāt experienced any flickering under Parallels on my M2 Mac?
Would that be from the WOW64 emulation software built into ARM system to run x86 code?
Other than the flickering issues how was the performance vs old Intel Surface machines?
Hi Scott,
Yes, thatās correct. The new Windows Arm (surface in particular). Weāre not sure if it is the WOW64 emulation or the Qualcomm GPU. Weāre doing a brief examination but things are not looking too good and we may be stuck waiting for them to fix their drivers.
Performance was good but flickering became so bad it was unusable.
Just an update on this - one of our devs was able to isolate the flashing and fix it. It was the section where we rendered textures (like logos and buttons) on the chart. We do it as triangles but we needed to change to squares!
There is still one final issue and that is that the line width can not be adjusted. We are reporting this to Microsoft and Qualcomm as there is nothing else we can do.
So long as you are happy with the standard line widths, Optuma will work fine on the Qualcomm Snapdragon PCs like the new 2024 Microsoft Surface.
Currently, this release (2.3 Build 33 or later) is in our internal testing phase, then weāll push it to beta (most likely next Monday) with a final release in a couple of weeks.