Stagger request times across multiple markets

[danjuma]

Hi Gary,

Just need a bit of clarity please. I have 4 markets being monitored at once. I have set the refresh rate to 2 secs if a market is not in-play, and 0.5 sec when the market goes in play. 2 markets will always go in-play at the same time, and sometimes, the other 2 markets will also go in-play while the first 2 markets are still in-paly. I have also set the throttle limit to 10 req/sec (as I have another instance of BA being used for another market). If I ticked the "Stagger request times across multiple markets" option in preferences, what exactly would this mean (apply in this case), or am I better off not ticking this option?

I know you mentioned this briefly in the following link, but I have had a look and I still do not fully understand.

http://gruss-software.co.uk/forum/viewt ... er+request

Many thanks.
Dan

[GaryRussell]

Every 5 minutes it will compare the last refresh time of each market with the same refresh rate. For example if you have 2 markets at 2 secs and 2 markets at 0.5 secs it will perform two adjustments if necessary. It will adjust the refresh times so that the 0.5 second refresh markets are refreshed 250ms apart and the 2 second refresh markets are refreshed 1 second apart.

To do the adjustment it will stop and re-start the refresh timers so there could be a slight delay to each refresh during this time. In theory this could delay your 0.5 second refresh by 250ms and your 2 second refresh by 1 second while this happens. You might want to disable this option if this concerns you.

[danjuma]

Thanks for the reply Gary.

So if I disable this option, how would my markets now be refreshed? I am just basically trying to work out the best option, whether to enable or disable the option?

Thanks

[GaryRussell]

The markets will be refreshed as they have always done. I only added this option for instances where there are many markets and they don't need to be refreshed that often. Imagine 60 markets opened at the same time with a 60 second refresh. Because they were all opened at the same time their refresh timers will all fire at the same time so you get a huge demand on your bandwidth every 60 seconds. The stagger requests option would ensure that the 60 refreshes occurred evenly over 60 seconds, 1 every second.

In your case to avoid any confusion just disable the option, you don't really need it.

[danjuma]

Many thanks Gary.

[bustrofedico]

this is pure genius, Gary! This is EXACTLY what I was thinking would be needed when logging different not so active markets. (still can't log different markets but will certainly succeed eventually, thanks to the many resources on this website)