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FAQ: Does cTrader use too much RAM?

cTrader Brokers

October 29, 2018

FAQ: Does cTrader use too much RAM?

Lots of traders have complained over the years that cTrader uses too much RAM. Why exactly does cTrader use so much RAM? To start with, in our opinion, this is not true and is a bit of a misconception from people who do not know how RAM works. We don’t think cTrader does use too much RAM.

Yes, you may have noticed that the amount of RAM cTrader uses is higher than other software on your computer. We do not deny that cTrader does use more RAM than MT4. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s too much. A lot of people think that good software should use less RAM. This is not true. Good software should perform well. It should not use more resources than what is needed and return those resources when they are no longer needed. cTrader does this.

As cTrader is an online trading platform, it’s not unreasonable for it to consume more RAM than for example Microsoft Word. cTrader’s job is to show you price updates and send your orders to the server as fast as possible. This is critical for you to be able to find trading opportunities, make a profit or prevent losses. Microsoft Word’s job is to show the letters you type on your keyboard on the screen. There is a big difference in the importance of the need for speed in the millisecond range between these two tasks.

Does cTrader use more RAM than MT4?

Yes, it does. But that is not exactly a bad thing. Consider that if you have 8GB of RAM on your desktop. If MT4 uses 200mb of RAM, and cTrader uses 500mb of RAM, does this mean cTrader is using too much? No, it means it’s using more. This would be a very black and white conclusion. Even if you have 4GB of RAM on your PC or Laptop, 500mb is still not a critical sacrifice, assuming you are not running a bunch of other applications at the same time. If you are, then it means that it’s time to upgrade your hardware or cut back on non-essential processes.

Why does cTrader use more RAM?

There are a few important points for why cTrader uses more RAM than MT4 or MT5.

Opening Multiple Charts

cTrader lets you open multiple charts inside the application or in different windows. All of these charts are receiving a stream of price updates. The more charts and indicators you are using on those charts, the more updates cTrader needs to receive and process. Opening dozens of charts is essentially sabotaging your own system’s performance. If your workstation can’t handle it, you shouldn’t do it. Consider Google Chrome, if you open dozens of tabs in the browser then Chrome can easily eat several gigabytes of RAM.

Level 2 Price Updates

One of the key features about cTrader is the Depth of Market that shows level 2 pricing. Since MT4 only shows level one prices, this naturally means cTrader needs to use more memory while it’s processing more information.

More Advanced Features

cTrader has some more advanced features which work inside the application, not on the trading server. For example, Advanced Take Profit, move Stop Loss to Break Even, shows more price tickers, loads settings from the cloud and others. These processes which take place inside the trading application also require CPU and RAM.

Just because cTrader uses RAM to get the job done, doesn’t mean that it wastes RAM or uses too much RAM. If you think that cTrader is too slow, it probably means that your system doesn’t have the resources required to run the application or all of the applications you are attempting to run simultaneously.

Take note of the minimum and recommended requirements for running cTrader.