Hardware and Software Requirements - Trading Technologies

Hardware and Software 

Requirements and 

Optimizations 

Version 7.X 

Document Version 7.17.0.DV1 3/14/2014

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Hardware and Software Requirements 

Introduction 

The TT Systems Integration team continually evaluates and tests new software and hardware as it 

is released to the market to ensure that TT software performance benchmarks are met or 

exceeded. The software and hardware requirements below are a result of these tests and are the 

same standards that TT uses in its own network, development environments, and test labs. 

Although TT software may run on operating systems and hardware that do not meet the listed 

standards, using systems that do not meet or exceed TT’s recommendations may degrade TT Software 

performance and reliability. 

TT develops its software according to the available features in the hardware and operating systems 

currently on the market. Thus, as TT software is designed, developed and released to customers, 

you must continue to upgrade your hardware and software to take advantage of TT's new 

functionality. Although it is possible to use TT software with older hardware, you might be at a 

disadvantage compared to other customers that continue to upgrade. These disadvantages may 

include latency and performance degradations. 

Due to the exponential growth of computing power, there is always new high-end hardware available. 

TT recommends that you upgrade your hardware at reasonable intervals to stay competitive.

Server-Class Machine Requirements 

Server-class machine requirements pertain to the following TT products: 

• TT Gateway 

• Autospreader® SE 

• Algo SE 

• Synthetic SE 

• FIX Adapter 

• FMDS 

• Price Proxy 

• Historical Fill Server (HFS)TT WAN Router 

• X_TRADER® Remote Host 

• SQL Databases 

Hardware 

Operating System 

Processor and Memory 

Network Card 

Hard Drive 

Windows Server 2008 R2 

Requirement 

Note: TT Gateways 7.15 and earlier require Windows Server 2003. 

Four cores (eight cores or more is preferred) with a minimum of 

4GB RAM 

• Two or more NICs with one pointed to the internal network 

and one or more pointed to the exchange 

• Match the speed and duplex settings of the switch port and 

NIC to maximize speed and avoid duplex mismatches 

Note: Due to driver and firmware limitations, TT does not recommend 

using certain Ethernet cards in a production environment. 

Refer to “Server-Class Machine Optimizations” on page 8 for specific 

chipset and version recommendations. 

30 GB or more of available space to accommodate TT software and 

log files 

Server or Product 

Recommendation or Exception 

Algo SE 

Autospreader SE 

Algo SE requires at least Windows Server 2003 R2, 64-bit and at least 

8 cores (e.g., two-quad core processors). 

Autospreader SE 7.17 and higher requires Windows Server 2008 R2, 

64-bit. Older versions require Windows Server 2003 R2, 32 or 64 bit. 

All versions require at least 8 cores (e.g., two-quad core processors).

Server or Product 

Synthetic SE 

Recommendation or Exception 

Synthetic SE 7.17 and higher requires Windows Server 2008 R2, 64- 

bit. Synthetic SE 7.3.X 64-bit also requires Windows Server 2008 R2, 

64-bit. 

All Synthetic SE 32-bit versions require Windows Server 2003 R2, 32 

or 64 bit. 

All versions require at least 8 cores (e.g., two-quad core processors). 

FIX Adapter 7.8.x 64-bit and higher requires Windows Server 2003 R2, 

64-bit or Windows Server 2008 R2, 64-bit. 

FIX Adapter 

FIX Adapter 7.8.x 32-bit and higher requires Windows Server 2003 R2, 

32-bit or 64-bit, or Windows Server 2008 R2, 32-bit or 64-bit. 

Pre-7.8.x FIX Adapters require Windows Server 2003 R2, 32-bit or 64- 

bit. 

60GB or more of available space, per FIX Adapter instance and .Net 

Framework 2.0 or higher 

FMDS 

TT User Setup 

Server 

TTM 

300 GB or larger hard drive 

Requires at least two instances of the TT User Setup Server per trading 

environment 

When TTM is deployed as a Remote Host,TT recommends Windows 

Server 2008 R2, SP1 64-bit for optimum performance and scalability

Client-Class Machine Requirements 

Client-class workstation requirements pertain to the following TT products: 

• X_TRADER® 

• X_TRADER® Pro 

• X_TRADER® API 

• TT API 

• TT User Setup Client 

• X_RISK® 

• TT SIM 

Components 

Minimum Requirement 

Preferred Requirement (and for use 

with ADMIN logins) 

Operating System 

(OS) 

Windows 8: supported for 

X_TRADER 7.17.20, X_RISK 

7.17.20, and, X_STUDY 7.9 

and higher. 

Windows 7 Professional or 

Ultimate 

The following operating system 

combinations are supported for 

a Japanese X_TRADER 

Desktop: 

• Japanese or Non-Japanese 

version s of Windows 

7 (Professional, 

and Ultimate). 

• Non-Japanese Windows 

must run an East 

Asian Language Pack 

set to the Japanese language. 

X_TRADER Desktop: Windows 7 Professional 

or Ultimate 

Add’l OS Reqs .Net Framework 4.0 .Net Framework 4.0 

Memory 4 GB 8 GM or more 

Processor Four cores 8 cores or more 

Note: Customers have the option of 

installing a 64-bit version of TTM (v2.1.1 

or higher). To use this version, you must 

be on a Win64 bit operating system. 

Note: The following products can be 

installed on a 64-bit operating system: 

X_TRADER, X_TRADER Pro, TT 

API 32-bit, X_RISK, and TT User 

Setup Client, however, TT API 64-bit 

requires a 64-bit operating system.

Components 

Network Card 

Minimum Requirement 

Integrated Gigabit NIC. Match 

the speed and duplex settings of 

the switch port and NIC to maximize 

speed and avoid duplex 

mismatches. 

Preferred Requirement (and for use 

with ADMIN logins) 

Gigabit NIC on a PCI-X 133 slot. Match 

the speed and duplex settings of the 

switch port and NIC to maximize speed 

and avoid duplex mismatches. 

Note: Due to driver and firmware limitations, TT does not recommend using 

certain Ethernet cards in a production environment. Refer to “NIC Settings” 

on page 51 for specific chipset and version recommendations. 

Hard Drive 

Motherboard 

Graphics Card 

Remote Connection 

• SATA drive with a minimum 

speed of 5400 rpm 

• 30 GB or more of available 

free space to 

accommodate TT software 

and log files 

One PCI-Express 16x slot for 

graphics card 

• PCI-Express based 

graphics card with 128 

MB of memory 

• Graphics card with two 

DVI ports to support a 

dual-monitor setup 

• Multiple two-port cards 

to support more than 

two monitors 

High-bandwidth Internet connection; 

do not use Satellite 

Broadband or proxy servers due 

to significant latency problems. 

• Solid State Drive with a minimum 

speed of 3GB/sec 

• 30 GB or more of available free 

space to accommodate TT software 

and log files 

One PCI-X 133 slot for NIC; one or more 

PCI-Express 16x slots for graphics card 

• PCI-Express based graphics card 

with 512 MB or more of memory 

• One or more graphics cards with 

two DVI ports to support a dualmonitor 

setup 

• Multiple two-port cards to support 

more than two monitors 

Dedicated direct line

Server-Class Machine Optimizations 

Server Systems Overview 

Before reviewing this information, ensure you are familiar with the “Server-Class Machine 

Requirements” on page 2. This document includes a list of TT products that require server-class 

machines. 

Note: Most recommendations and optimizations in this document will be across all server-class 

machines; however, exceptions will be noted for specific products.

Hardware and Operating System — Windows Server 2003 

(32-bit) 

Service Pack and Registry 

TT supports Windows Server 2003 for all server-class machines. TT no longer supports Windows 

2000 Servers. 

Note: Two additional hot fixes should be installed on server-class machines: 

• Hotfix 917114: Will resolve the issue when a server experiences “An operation on a 

socket cannot be performed because the system lacks sufficient buffer space or because a 

queue is full.” 

• Hotfix 931311: The heavy use of Winsock programs may exhaust the "non-paged pool 

memory" of a Microsoft Windows Server 2003-based computer. This behavior is likely to 

occur if the Winsock program is dealing with both "Out-of-Band (MSG_OOB) traffic" 

and "standard TCP traffic." In this situation, you may receive various error messages. 

Also, you may experience poor performance. Additionally, the system may stop responding 

(hang). 

** Hotfix 917114 is included with SP2, but if a client is running SP1, it would need to be 

installed separately. Hotfix 931311 is not included with SP2 and should be installed separately 

as well. 

In addition, the following configuration changes must be made to the registry on each. (These 

changes are made in conjunction with the NIC configuration changes in the next section.) 

1. Add the following DWORDS (and values) to… 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\ Parameters. 

• ArpCacheLife = ffffffff 

• ArpCacheMinReferencedLife = ffffffff 

• Tcp1323Opts = 00000001 

• EnableTCPA = 00000000 

• EnableRSS = 00000000 

• EnableTCPChimney = 0000000 

• DisableTaskOffload = 00000001 

2. Add IgnorePushBitOnReceives = 00000001 as a new DWORD (and value) to… 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\AFD\ Parameters. 

3. Add TcpAckFrequency = 00000001 as a new DWORD (and value) to…HKEY_LO- 

CAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\ Parameters\Interfaces\. 

Note: See Appendix B for explanations about these Registry settings.

NIC Configuration 

• Ethernet cards must be on the latest driver version (especially Broadcom Ethernet cards). 

Note: Per internal testing, TT has found that Nvidia cards can introduce random latency 

and disconnects. 

Note: Due to driver and firmware limitations, TT does not recommend using Broadcom 

NetXtreme I based Ethernet cards in a production environment. Instead TT recommends 

the Broadcom NetXtreme II Gigabit cards, with either Broadcom driver version 14.2 or 

higher or HP driver 5.2.17 or higher. 

Recommended: 

• NetXtreme II Gigabit (chipset 5706, 5708, 5709, 5716) 

Not Recommended: 

• NetXtreme I Desktop/Mobile (chipset 5702, 5705, 5751, 5752, 5753, 5754, 5755, 

5756, 5761, 5764, 5782, 57760, 57761, and 57765) 

• NetXtreme I Server (chipset 5700, 5701, 5703, 5704, 5714, 5715, 5718, 5721, 

5722, 5723, and 5780) 

• NetLink 57xx (chipset 5784, 5785, 57780, 57781, 57785, 57788, 57790, 57791, 

57795, 5781, 5786, 5787, 5788, and 5789) 

• NetLink 4401 (chipset 4401) 

• Optimize the server through Windows or through any NIC management utility that is 

installed on the server (e.g., HP NIC Utility). 

• Match the speed and duplex settings of the switch port and NIC to avoid speed or 

duplex mismatches. 

• For all NICs, disable the following offloads and other NIC parameters (if they 

exist): 

• Checksum Offload = OFF 

• Large Send Offload = OFF 

• TCP Chimney Offload = OFF* 

• Tx IP Checksum Offload = OFF 

• Rx IP Checksum Offload = OFF 

• Tx TCP Checksum Offload = OFF 

• Rx TCP Checksum Offload = OFF 

• Receive side scaling = OFF** 

• Flow control = OFF 

• Enable PME = Disable 

• Internal Moderate Interrupt = Minimal 

• Receive Descriptors = Set to a maximum value 

• Transmit Descriptors = Set to a maximum value 

• NIC Sleep 

• Number of Coalesce Buffers = 16 

• Number of Rx Buffers = maximum (2048 Intel/3000 Broadcom) 

• Number of Tx Buffers = maximum (2048)

• Wake On = Disable 

• Wake up Mode Cap = Disable 

• Task Offload Cap = Disable 

• Jumbo Packet = Disable 

• Reduce Speed On Power Down = Disable 

• Save Power Now Enabled = Disable 

• Rx Coalescing Ticks = Disable 

• Tx Coalescing Ticks = Disable 

• Rx Max Coalesced Frames = Disable 

• Tx Max Coalesced Frames = Disable 

Note: See Appendix A for explanations about the above NIC settings. 

*Disable TCP Chimney Offload Settings 

Impact: This setting enables TCP/IP processing to be offloaded to network adapters that 

can handle the TCP/IP processing in hardware. Each TCP Chimney Offload-capable network 

adapter has a finite number of connections that it can support in hardware. TT has 

determined through extensive testing that this setting should be disabled to improve performance. 

**Disable Receive Side Scaling (RSS) 

Impact: When multiple CPUs reside in a single computer, the Windows networking stack 

limits “receive” protocol processing to a single CPU. RSS enables packets that are 

received from a network adapter to be balanced across multiple CPUs. TT tests have 

shown that enabling RSS can slow down incoming data and cause dropped packets on 

both single and multi-processor machines. 

Note: Refer to CA104-07 for more information on these two settings.

NIC Teaming 

Limited testing performed by TT has shown that running TT software on a machine with NIC 

Teaming enabled in Fault Tolerant Mode can add additional price and order latency. NIC Teaming 

enabled in Load Balanced Mode is not supported by TT as it can introduce packets being received 

out of sequence and may result in disconnects. 

Customers that choose to run NIC Teaming in Fault Tolerant Mode should keep in mind the following: 

• NIC drivers should be kept current. 

• Match the speed and duplex settings of the switch port and NIC to maximize speed and 

avoid duplex mismatches. 

• Customers should perform failover tests to verify correct configuration and connectivity 

with either path. 

Note: Customers experiencing latency issues may be required by TT to remove NIC Teaming as 

part of the troubleshooting effort.

Power Save Settings 

To avoid unexpected disconnects and to help ensure proper TT application functionality, turn off 

any power save or hibernation functionality on machines that host TT software. 

• Display Properties 

To access, right-click on the desktop and select Properties. Select the Screen Saver tab. 

• Set Screen Saver to None. 

Click the Power button. 

• Set Power Management (Power schemes) to Always On. 

• Set Turn off monitor and Turn off hard disks to Never. 

Select the Hibernate tab. 

• Ensure Hibernate mode is disabled. 

• BIOS 

• Turn off hard disk power saving. 

• Turn off HDD Spin Down. 

Power Profile Setting (HP G6 /G7) 

On Hewlett Packard G6 and G7 servers, set the HP Power Profile in the BIOS to Maximum 

Performance. This is a significant performance increase from the default setting. 

The HP Power Profile value is displayed during system boot-up. You can change the setting by 

accessing the HP Power Profile parameter from the Power Management settings in the BIOS. 

Windows Performance Settings 

Ensure servers are set to automatically adjust for best performance. 

To access this setting, right-click on My Computer and select Properties. Select the Advanced 

tab, and click the Settings button within the Performance section. 

• Select the radial button next to Adjust for best performance.

Windows Services 

In Windows Services, disable all unnecessary services. For example: 

• Windows Time 

• Computer Browser 

• Automatic Updates* 

• Print Spooler 

• Windows Firewall** 

* Automatic updates should be downloaded and installed outside of trading hours. 

** If you do not disable your Windows firewall, ensure port 10200 is enabled.

Hardware and Operating System — Windows Server 2008 

R2 

OS and Service Pack 

TT supports Windows Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1 for the following server-class 

machines, beginning with the version listed: 

• Autospreader® SE 7.2.1 

• Algo SE 7.7.2 

• FIX Adapter 7.7.1 

• FMDS 7.5.2 

• Synthetic SE 7.1.4 

• TT Gateways 7.13 (Montreal, CBOE, and FIX Gateways) 

• TT Gateways 7.14 (all other TT Gateways) 

• TT Chron 7.7.0 

• TT WAN Router (TTM 4.2.3)


• Ethernet cards must be on the latest driver version. 







Recommended: 










• For all NICs, disable the following: 

• Checksum Offload 

• Flow Control 

• Large Send Offload 

• NIC Sleep 

• QoS Packet Scheduler 

• IPV6 

• Link-Layer Topology Discovery Mapper I/O Driver 

• Link-Layer Topology Discovery Responder 

• Run the following commands individually from a command line: 

• netsh interface tcp set global rss=disabled 

• netsh interface tcp set global chimney=disabled 

• netsh interface tcp set global ecncapability=disabled 

• netsh interface tcp set global congestionprovider=none 

• netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=normal 

• netsh interface ipv4 set global taskoffload=disabled 

• netsh interface ipv4 set global mldversion=version2 

• Increase the Number of Rx Buffers to 3000 (the latest driver version is 6.2.9.0)

NIC Teaming 

Limited testing performed by TT has shown that running TT software on a machine with NIC 

Teaming enabled in Fault Tolerant Mode can add additional price and order latency. NIC Teaming 

enabled in Load Balanced Mode is not supported by TT as it can introduce packets being received 

out of sequence and may result in disconnects. 

Customers that choose to run NIC Teaming in Fault Tolerant Mode should keep in mind the following: 

• NIC drivers should be kept current 

• Match the speed and duplex settings of the switch port and NIC to maximize speed and 

avoid duplex mismatches. 

• Customers should perform failover tests to verify correct configuration and connectivity 

with either path. 

Note: Customers experiencing latency issues may be required by TT to remove NIC Teaming as 

part of the troubleshooting effort. 



any power save or hibernation functionality for the machines that host TT software. 

Access the Control Panel. (Select Start | Control Panel.)

Power Settings 

Click Change screen saver. 

• Click the Screen saver drop-down and select None. 

• Click Change power settings. 

• Click Change plan settings next to your preferred plan. 

• Ensure Turn of the display and Put the computer to sleep are both set to Never. 

Turn off any other power save or hibernation functionality for the monitor and all NICs. 


• Ensure workstations are set to automatically adjust for best performance. 

• To access this setting, right-click on (My) Computer and select Properties. Click 

Advanced system settings from the left side menu. 

• Click the Advanced tab and select Settings within the Performance section. 

• Within the Visual Effects tab and select the radial button next to Adjust for best 

performance. 

• Click Apply and then OK. 

• Disable ALL unnecessary startup items within the System Configuration –Startup tab. 

• To access this setting, select the Start globe and type msconfig in the Start Search 

field. 

• Select the Startup tab and deselect all items that are not necessary as startup items.


In Windows Services, disable all unnecessary services. For example, disable the following Windows 

Services: 

• Base Filtering Engine 

• Computer Browser* 


• Windows Defender 


• Windows Search 


• Windows Update 

* TT Strongly recommends disabling the Computer Browser service. 

** If you do not disable your Windows firewall, ensure port 10200 is enabled. 

To access the Services window, select the Start globe, and type services.msc in the Start Search 

field. 

Note: When you stop a service with dependencies, Windows prompts you to stop the dependent 

services as well. After the services are stopped, you should also disable any dependent services.

TT Server-Class Software 

TT Gateways — General 

When installing TT Gateways, adhere to the following: 

• Ensure TT Gateways are installed on dedicated machines (i.e., do not install TT Gateways 

on Windows domain controllers, print servers, etc.). 

• Ensure all TT Gateways have TTClean enabled in TTChron to ensure log files are deleted 

on a regular basis. 

• Ensure the Contracts-Per-Message parameter in Aconfig is set to 50 on all TT Gateways 

and MPF TT Gateways (instead of four (4)). 

Please note: Trading Technologies will provide "best effort" support to virtualized deployments 

of TT applications. Under best effort support, TT’s Customer Support Center (CSC) 

will make their best effort to troubleshoot cases in standard fashion unless the issue is 

deemed a virtualization technology-specific issue, at which point customers must contact 

the virtualization vendor directly for assistance. 

In general, customers may experience some performance degradation when running an 

application on virtual systems. You (the customer) must determine how virtualization 

affects performance in your particular deployment and make any necessary adjustments to 

the hardware and configuration. At a minimum, customers should allocate (reserve) virtual 

machine resources inline with the recommended hardware requirements for TT applications 

as specified in “Server-Class Machine Requirements” on page 2.

TT Gateways — Market Data Traffic 

During trading sessions with high volumes, the price feed from several TT Gateways can cause 

substantial network load and noticeably impact performance on X_TRADER® workstations. 

There are two TT-specific options to help alleviate the amount of network traffic sent: You may 

enable price coalescing on TT Gateways or set up an MPF2 (Market Price Feed) trading environment. 

Price Coalescing 

• When a TT Gateway receives a price update for a specific product, it stores that price until 

a specified time interval has passed. If the TT Gateway receives another price update for 

the same product in the meantime, the TT Gateway will overwrite the stored price with 

that new price. The TT Gateway will send out the latest price it has stored when the time 

specified has passed. 

• Price Coalescing is enabled in the Aconfig Utility under Core\Server\Exchange-Specific\Exchange-Flavor\Market-Depth. 

The Interval-mSecs setting determines the amount 

of time between these price feed broadcasts. 

• Based on the trading environment, a decision should be made with your local TAM as to 

what the Interval-mSecs setting should be set to (e.g., 50 ms). The higher the setting, the 

more coalescing. 

Note: When using price coalescing, not all price updates are sent out, only the latest price update 

for the specified products are sent out. 

Note: Do not coalesce TT Eurex or Xetra Gateways (as market data is already coalesced by the 

exchange); however, you may coalesce TT EurexPF Gateways.

MPF Environment 

• You can configure your TT trading environment to decouple (i.e., off load) much of the 

price functionality from several TT Gateways of a particular market onto a separate TT 

server. 

• Using MPF2, you can configure one TT Gateway to provide prices to client applications 

and then configure additional TT Gateways to provide clients with order and fill connectivity. 

TT Gateways that supply only order and fill data must host a server component 

called the Price Proxy. 

• Ensure the Contracts-Per-Message parameter in Aconfig is set to 50 on all TT Gateways 

and MPF TT Gateways (instead of four (4)). 

• Price Proxy servers should also have the Contracts-Per-Message parameter set to 50. This 

is found in the priceproxy.ini file. 

Note: For more information on setting up an MPF2 environment, contact your local TAM. 

Globex (CME, CBOT) 

Adhere to the following best practices when installing Globex Gateways: 

• TT Globex Gateways should have two or more NICs with one pointing to the internal network 

and one or more pointing to the CME price distribution feed. 

• Point MDP to limited channels (i.e., Equity Futures channel). 

• TT Gateways allow a maximum of 10 channels per TT Gateway. 

• It is recommended to have separate TT Gateways for specific channel groups. For 

example, a customer could install a TT CME Gateway dedicated to just NYMEX 

products (channels) or one dedicated to just EOS products. 

• Monitor the number of iLink connections per TT CME Gateway for degradation of performance. 

Consult with your TAM to determine and optimal number of iLink sessions per TT 

Gateway.

LIFFE Connect 

Adhere to the following best practices when installing TT LIFFE Connect Gateways: 

ICE 

• In a failover group, TT recommends each TT Gateway connect to a unique LIFFE Connect 

Gateway. Each TT LIFFE Gateway in the failover group should also have the same 

keys and the same IDs in User Manager. 

• Keep “prod_at_open” current, especially in a failover environment. This entry is found in 

the HostInfo.cfg file and is referenced when the TT LIFFE Gateway starts up. 

• If possible, do not point the software of more than one Independent Software Vendor 

(ISV) to a single LIFFE Connect Gateway. 

• One Price server should connect to one LIFFE Connect Gateway (recommended). 

• Each TT LIFFE Gateway should have its own dedicated price key. 

Note: Other ISVs do not connect to LIFFE the same way. Some require that each individual 

trader establishes its own Price API connection. TT has one Price API connection per 

LIFFE Connect Gateway; all traders connecting to the TT LIFFE Gateway will use this 

API connection. 

Adhere to the following best practices when installing ICE Gateways: 

• Use a direct line to connect to ICE due to security and performance issues with the Internet. 

• If a customer chooses to use an Internet connection, it is recommended that SSL encryption 

is used. When using the Internet, install and configure an SSL wrapper like S Tunnel. 

FMDS 

Note: When using direct lines, TT does not recommend using SSL encryption as this 

slightly decreases performance. 

FMDS servers require a 300 GB or larger hard drive. 

FIX Adapter 

FIX Adapter servers require 60 GB or more of available space, per FIX Adapter instance. 

Autospreader SE 

Autospreader SE servers require at least an eight core machine, e.g., Dual Quad-Core, or better. 

Synthetic SE 

Synthetic SE servers require at least an eight core machine, e.g., Dual Quad-Core, or better.

Algo SE 

Algo SE servers require at least an eight core machine, e.g., Dual Quad-Core, or better. Algo SE 

servers also require at least Windows Server 2003, Server Pack 2, 64-bit. 

TT WAN Routers 

Keep the following in mind when setting up TT WAN Routing: 

• Remote offices with three or more client machines should be set up to connect via TT 

WAN Routing rather than X_TRADER® Remote, in order to most efficiently utilize 

bandwidth. 

• TT WAN Routers are stand-alone servers running TTM and Guardian. Do not install TT 

WAN Routers on existing TT Gateways or on VMWare images. 

Note: It is recommended to contact your local TAM when setting up TT WAN Routing. 

TT WAN Router Config File 

Add the following change to the TTMRD.cfg file: 

Compression: Add compression to ports 8900 and 8901 in the neighbor level only. The Service 

Area should not be edited. 

• Set compression_level = 3 

Accumulation and Nagling: Both Accumulation and Nagling are used to conserve bandwidth 

and are disabled by default. Accumulation and Nagling cannot be run simultaneously, and neither 

is required. 

• Nagling: Enable Nagling to ports 8900 and 8901 in the neighbor level only. The Service 

Area should not be edited. 

• Set TcpNoDelay = false within the TTMRD.cfg file. 

• Accumulation: Alternatively, you could enable Accumulation (instead of nagling) which is 

supported with TTM version 2.1.1 and above. 

• Set accumulator_timeout = [value between 0 and 5000000 microseconds] within 

the TTMRD.cfg file. 

• Set accumulator_mtu = [value between 0 and 64000 bytes] within the 

TTMRD.cfg file. 

Note: For help determining the optimal settings for your network, please contact 

your TAM. 

Note: TcpNoDelay must be set to True if Accumulation should be enabled. If TcpNoDelay is set 

to False, Nagling is used and accumulation is disabled, even if the accumulation parameters are 

configured.

TT WAN Router Registry 

• Add the following DWORDs (and values) to the Registry in order to allow for faster 

resource recovery… 

HKEY_LOCALMACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\ Parameters 

• SynAttackProtect = 00000001 

• TcpTimedWaitDelay = 1e 

Note: The value 1e represents 30 seconds in hexadecimal. 

• Delete the TCPWindowSize setting from the Registry (if it exists), located at: HKEY_LO- 

CAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ Tcpip\Parameters 

Note: TCPWindowSize should be deleted within the Registry on TT WAN Routers only. 

The TTMRD.cfg file will manage this under the TCP_Window_Size parameter entry. This 

is so TT can manage the connection at the neighbor level. If you leave this setting in the 

registry, then it will override the TTMRD.cfg file. 

• Within the TTMRD.cfg file, add the TCP_Window_Size parameter for each neighbor if 

there is a delay in round trip times for small sized circuits or if you have a circuit going 

overseas. In order to determine the best setting for TCP_Window_Size, follow the below 

steps to compute the needed value on every TT WAN Router: 

Step 

1. 

2. 

3. 

Description 

Determine the busiest time of day when the most market data will be 

subscribed to over the data line between WAN Routers. 

Run a continuous ping from one of the TT WAN Routers to its neighbor 

on the other side of the link using the “-t” switch during this busy time, 

for at least 30 minutes. 

Press “Ctrl-C” to stop the continuous ping. Note the average response 

time.

Step 

Description 

Plug the average response time in seconds into the following equation: 

Size of line (Bandwidth (in bits per seconds) * Average latency (in 

seconds) / 8 (to convert bits to bytes) = TCPWindowSize that should 

be used (in bytes). 

Example: If average response time is 90ms (.090 seconds) and the data 

line is a T1 (1,544,000bits/sec), the calculation would be as follows: 

.090 *1,544,000 / 8 = 17370 bytes = 17K. 

4. 

• If the calculation is < 64K, TT recommends leaving the TT 

default setting to 64K. 

• If the calculation is > 64K, TT recommends rounding to the nearest 

standard 2 to the power of X increments (i.e., 64, 128, 256, 

512, etc.). Also create the additional REQUIRED registry setting 

at: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters. 

• Create a new DWORD value “TCP1323Opts” (no 

quotes) and set the value to “1” (no quotes). This is necessary 

to enable Windows scaling to advertise windows 

above 64K. Be aware that the maximum setting for TCP- 

WindowSize is 1 Gig. 

Note: Both the TCPWindowSize and TCP1323Opts registry entries are located in the same 

hive in the Registry: (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\ 

Parameters)

X_TRADER Remote Hosts 

Keep the following in mind when setting up X_TRADER® Remote: 

• TT does not recommend setting up X_TRADER® Remote client machines to connect 

directly to TT WAN Routers or TT Gateways. 

• Do not use Satellite Broadband due to high latency. 

• Do not connect a remote workstation to a proxy server. Use a NAT device instead or connect 

directly to the Remote Host machine through the Internet or a direct line. 

• Do not install Remote Hosts on VMWare images.

X_TRADER Remote Host Config File 

Compression: Configure X_TRADER® Remote Hosts to use compression by adding the following 

change to the ttmd.cfg file between, as shown below. 

 

# Logging type StdErr, File, both, none 

LoggingType = File 

# tracing level normal, trace1, trace2, trace3, trace4 

TracingLevel = normal 

# Number of days log files will be kept for 

LogFileHistory = 10 

# Request Port 

RequestPort = 10200 

# If true, only local communications (on the same box) allowed 

local = false 

# Nagling on 

TcpNoDelay = false 

# compression 

compression_level = 3 #This must be manually added to the ttmd.cfg file on all Remote 

Hosts. 

 

> = 239.255.7.9 

 

 

Note: At the X_TRADER® client level, make sure the user selects the check box next to Enable 

Compression within the Daemon Setup window. After the change, Guardian and TTM should 

restart. 

Accumulation and Nagling: Both Accumulation and Nagling are used to conserve bandwidth 

and are disabled by default. Accumulation and Nagling cannot be run simultaneously, and neither 

is required.

• Nagling: Enable Nagling by setting TcpNoDelay = false within the section of 

the ttmd.cfg file. 

• Accumulation: Alternatively, you could enable Accumulation (instead of nagling) which is 

supported with TTM version 2.1.1 and above. 

• Set accumulator_timeout = [value between 0 and 5000000 microseconds] per 

service within the section of the ttmd.cfg file. 

• Set accumulator_mtu = [value between 0 and 64000 bytes] per service within the 

section of the ttmd.cfg file. 

• Set TcpNoDelay = true within the section of the ttmd.cfg file. 

Note: For help determining the optimal settings for your network, please contact 

your TAM. 

Note: TcpNoDelay must be set to True if Accumulation should be enabled. If TcpNoDelay is set 

to False, Nagling is used and accumulation is disabled, even if the accumulation parameters are 

configured.

X_TRADER Remote Host Registry 

Add the following DWORDs (and values) to the Registry in order to allow for faster resource 

recovery 

HKEY_LOCALMACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\ Parameters: 

• SynAttackProtect = 00000001 

• TcpTimedWaitDelay = 1e

Additional Best Practices for Server-Class Systems 

General 

Ensure the following additional best practices are adhered to: 

• Keep hardware drivers up-to-date. If you have a choice between using Microsoft® drivers 

and vendor drivers, always use vendor drivers. 

• Check System Maintenance: 

• Check disk space. 

• Use Disk Defragmenter once a month: 

• Set up dual power supplies with UPS backup. 

• Set up backup fans. 

• Consult the exchange or TT’s System Administration Manuals for required bandwidth 

when determining exchange connectivity. 

• Turn off Search Indexing. 

• Double-click My Computer and right-click on Local Disk C:. 

• Select Properties from the Context menu. 

• Deselect the check box next to Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast 

file searching. 

• Click Apply. To confirm, ensure the radial button next to Apply changes to C:, 

subfolders and files is selected and click OK. A few access denied errors may 

appear; acknowledge these by clicking Ignore to continue. 

Note: You can take advantage of the Indexing Service that creates indices of the contents and 

properties of all files on local and network drives in order to increase file searching speed. It is 

quite similar to “Find Fast” that ships with Microsoft Office. There is a downside in using this 

option as this service runs continuously and can slow down your machine’s general performance 

because it has to index files continuously. As a good practice, if you do not need slightly 

faster file searches, the feature can be safely turned off. Be aware that Indexing Service is turned 

on by default for all NTFS partitions.

Third-Party Software 

Time Synchronization 

• Because TT software is extremely sensitive to time changes, if you must manually change 

time settings, wait until the TT Gateways are down. Reboot the server after you re-synchronize 

clock settings. 

• Customers may choose to use NTP (Network Time Protocol) to synchronize computer 

clocks over a network. 

• TT recommends using an NTP service that is accurate within 1 second or less. 

Windows Time Service does not guarantee the level of accuracy that TT requires. 

• Establish an NTP Server with multiple NTP listeners (this will run continuously). 

• You must have at least three masters for a proper NTP session. This skews the 

clock and stabilizes drift. 

Virus Protection Software 

• TT recommends not enabling real-time virus scanning on the TT directory and its subdirectories. 

• Any virus scanning on the TT directory should be performed during non-trading hours. 

Hardware Performance Monitoring 

• TT recommends using third-party tools to monitor the performance of TT servers (e.g., 

processor and memory utilization). 

• Example tools include SolarWinds and Nagios.

Client-Class Machine Optimizations 

Client Systems Overview 

Before reviewing this information, ensure you are familiar with the “Client-Class Machine 

Requirements” on page 4. This document includes a list of TT products that require client-class 

machines. 

Note: Most recommendations and optimizations in this document will be across all client-class 

machines; however, exceptions will be noted for specific products.

Hardware and Operating System – XP Professional 

OS and Service Pack 

TT recommends all client machines be installed with Windows XP and SP1 or higher. 

Note: The following operating system combinations are supported for a Japanese X_TRADER® 

machine: 

• Japanese Windows XP Professional 

• Non-Japanese Windows XP Professional running an East Asian Language Pack set to the 

Japanese language 









Recommended: 













• Flow control 

• NIC Sleep

Registry 

Set “No Arp’ing” by making changes to the following registry keys to ensure best performance… 

• Navigate to the following registry key: HKEY_LOCALMACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\ 

Parameters 

• Double-click ArpCacheLife. 

• Type ffffffff in the Value data field and click OK. 

• Double-Click ArpCacheMinReferencedLife 

• Type ffffffff in the Value data field and click OK. 

• Navigate to the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\AFD\ 

Parameters 

• Right-click in the right pane and select New | DWORD Value from the Context 

menu. 

• Type in IgnorePushBitOnReceives and press Enter. 

• Double-click IgnorePushBitOnReceives and type 1 in the Value data field. Click 

OK.



any power save or hibernation functionality on machines that host TT software. 

• Display Properties 

To access, right-click on the desktop and select Properties. Select the Screen Saver tab. 

• Set Screen Saver to None. 

Click the Power button. 

• Set Power Management (Power schemes) to Always On. 

• Set Turn off monitor and Turn off hard disks to Never. 

Select the Hibernate tab. 

• Ensure Hibernate mode is disabled. 

• BIOS 


• Turn off HDD Spin Down.


Ensure servers are set to automatically adjust for best performance. 

To access this setting, right-click on My Computer and select Properties. Select the Advanced 

tab, and click the Settings button within the Performance section. Select the radial button next to 

Adjust for best performance. 


In Windows Services, disable all unnecessary services. For example: 


• Computer Browser 


• Windows Firewall*** 



** TT strongly recommends disabling the Computer Browser service. 

*** If you do not disable your Windows firewall, ensure port 10200 is enabled. 

To access the Services window, select Start | Run and type services.msc in the Open field.

Hardware and Operating System — Windows 7 

OS and Hotfixes 

TT client applications (X_TRADER®, X_RISK®, X_STUDY®, TT User Setup) will be supported 

when running on Windows 7 with the following caveats: 

• The TT client must be running Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate, 

with Service Pack 1 applied. 

• The TT client applications must be running at least the following version: X_TRADER® 

7.8.0, TT_TRADER® 7.8.0, X_RISK® 7.4.4, X_STUDY® 7.5.0, or TT User Setup 7.3.0 

• The Base Filtering Engine (BFE) Windows Service must be disabled. 

Note: The following operating system combinations are supported for a Japanese X_TRADER® 

machine: 

• Japanese Windows 7 

• Non-Japanese Windows 7 running an East Asian Language Pack set to the Japanese language

Network Connection Properties 

TT recommends disabling the following network connection items: 

• QoS Packet Scheduler 

• Internet Protocol Version 6 

• Link-Layer Topology Discovery Mapper I/O Driver 

• Link-Layer Topology Discovery Responder 

To access Network Connections, clicking the Start globe, then click Control Panel, Network 

and Internet, Network and Sharing Center, and then Change adapter settings. Right-click the 

network connection you want to edit.









Recommended: 












• Flow Control 


• NIC Sleep 

• Run the following commands individually from a command line: 

• netsh interface tcp set global rss=disabled 

• netsh interface tcp set global chimney=disabled 

• netsh interface tcp set global ecncapability=disabled 

• netsh interface tcp set global congestionprovider=none 

• netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=normal 

• netsh interface ipv4 set global taskoffload=disabled 

• netsh interface ipv4 set global mldversion=version3 

• Increase the Number of Rx Buffers to 3000 (the latest driver version is 6.2.9.0)



any power save or hibernation functionality for the machines that host TT software. 

Power Settings 

BIOS 

• Select the Start globe and then enter “screen saver” into the Search programs and files 

field. 

• Click the Screen saver drop-down and select None. 

• On this same window, click Change power settings. 

• On the Select a power plan screen, select High Performance. This option is sometimes 

hidden in the additional plans section. 

• Click Change plan settings next to the High Performance plan. 

• Ensure Turn of the display and Put the computer to sleep are both set to Never. 

• Click Save changes. 

• Click OK. 


Turn off any other power save or hibernation functionality for the monitor and all NICs.

Visual Effects and Appearance Options 

Traders that prefer the visual appearance (“look and feel”) of Windows XP over the visual appearance 

of Windows 7, often select a “Windows Classic” based theme. While this theme does provide 

the familiar legacy appearance of XP, it introduces an issue where windows and or cells 

within windows will “flicker”. This is a problem with other “Basic and High Contrast” themes as 

well. To avoid the flickering, follow the Visual Effects and Appearance Options optimizations 

listed below: 

• Select the Start globe and then enter “adjust appearance” into the Search programs 

and files field. 

• Select Adjust the appearance and performance of windows. 

• On the Visual Effects tab, click Custom and then uncheck all items except the following: 

• Enable desktop composition (required to avoid screen flickering) 

• Show thumbnails instead of icons (optional - many users prefer to leave this 

enabled) 

• Show windows contents while dragging (optional – many users prefer to leave 

this enabled) 

• Use visual styles on windows and buttons (required to avoid screen flickering) 

• Click OK.


• Ensure workstations are set to automatically adjust for best performance. 

• To access this setting, select the Start globe and then enter “appearance” into the 

Search programs and files field. Select the Adjust the appearance and performance 

of Windows link. On the Visual Effects tab and select Adjust for best 

performance and then select the following checkboxes (if they exist): “Enable 

Aero Peek”, “Enable desktop composition”, and “Use visual styles on windows 

and buttons”. Click OK. 

• Disable ALL unnecessary startup items within the System Configuration –Startup tab. 

• To access this setting, select the Start globe and then enter “system configuration” 

into the Search programs and files field. Select the Startup tab and deselect 

all items that are not necessary as startup items. TT recommends leaving 

Guardian, trading applications, and antivirus software selected.


You must disable the Base Filtering Engine (BFE) Windows Service. 

In addition, TT recommends that you disable all other unnecessary services. For example: 


• Computer Browser** 

• Security Center 

• Tablet PC Input Services 

• Windows Defender 


• Windows Search 


• Windows Update 


** TT Strongly recommends disabling the Computer Browser service. 

*** If you do not disable your Windows firewall, ensure port 10200 is enabled. 

To access the Services window, select the Start globe, and type services.msc in the Start Search 

field. 

Note: When you stop a service with dependencies, Windows prompts you to stop the dependent 

services as well. After the services are stopped, you should also disable any dependent services.

TT Client-Class Software 

General 

Do not run TT applications in tandem with non-TT programs. 

X_TRADER 

Every open and minimized window consumes resources, so open as few windows as possible. 

Close any open and minimized windows that are not needed. 

• Subscribe to needed products only. 

• To allow for faster performance when opening large workspaces, X_TRADER® 

workstations should subscribe to the entire product instead of individual contracts 

in Market Explorer. Highlight the required product without clicking on the plus 

sign (+) to the left of the instrument name. Once the Market Grid has opened, use 

the Show/Hide Rows option to hide unwanted contract rows. 

• X_TRADER® Remote clients should only subscribe to the contract series they 

wish to view in order to reduce bandwidth. Within the Market Explorer Instruments 

column, click on the plus sign (+) to the left of the product to view the 

entire list of contracts. Highlight the contracts you wish to open and click on the 

transfer button (>) to move them to the Selected Instruments column. 

• Replace multiple Market Grid windows with tabs in X_TRADER® to increase processing 

speed. 

• Minimize the number of Market Grid windows opened. It is better to have more contracts 

per Market Grid window than to have many Market Grids with a small number of contracts. 

Limit the number of Market Grid windows to a maximum of 20. 

• If you do not need TT calculated Implied Pricing, turn it off. This setting may be turned 

off before a number and turned back on afterwards. 

• Do not have Depth layout enabled in Market Grid if depth is not watched. 

• Filter the Audit Trail so that only needed messages are displayed (either by number of 

lines or by exchange or both). 

• Turn off MD Trader® price consolidation, if possible. 

• Using the Show/Hide columns feature, limit the number of different columns displayed to 

only those needed. 

• Minimize the type of highlighting that is turned on. For example, if not needed, disable 

Highlight Border on Change, Use Net Change Color Coding and Use Net Position Color 

Coding. 

• Do not use any unnecessary outbound Excel links. 

• Back up :\tt\datfiles\ttconfig (stored workspace settings).

Autospreader®/Autotrader 

• In Autospreader®, use Inside Smart Quote or Advanced Slop for maximum optimization. 

For further optimizations around these two settings, ask your Account Manager. 

• In Autospreader®, use user-defined ticking rather than price consolidation wherever it 

meets your needs. 

• In Autotrader, wherever possible, use throttling for your Fills and Quotes 

X_RISK 

Keep the following in mind when installing X_RISK®: 

• If you use the X_RISK® Client GUI, your client workstation must have 512 MB memory 

per 50,000 fills. For example, if you routinely process between 30,000 and 60,000 fills per 

day, you must use 1 GB. 

• If you intend on using the email alert functionality of X_RISK®, you must install Windows 

Messaging on the X_RISK® workstation. This is packaged with the Windows Setup 

but does not install by default.

Guardian 

When an Administrator updates any trader ID data or risk limit data in Guardian and publishes the 

changes, Guardian synchronizes the data across all TT machines in the customer network. TT recommends 

the following Best Practices for insuring integrity of the distributed Guardian database: 

• Only one administrator should edit and publish changes in Guardian at a time. If two 

administrators publish changes at the same time, one set of changes will be lost and need 

to be re-entered. 

• Allow at least one minute between Guardian publishes to allow time for changes to propagate 

throughout the entire network. 

• Do not bring new servers online during trading hours. This can cause excessive Guardian 

synchronization activity on production servers. 

• A single trader is limited to 32K of user and risk data in Guardian. This is equivalent to a 

single trader with 400 to 450 product limits assigned. If the 32K limit is exceeded, Guardian 

will display an error when publishing the risk record, indicating the publish failed. In 

this case, reduce the number of product limits assigned to the trader and re-publish.

TT User Setup (Client and Server) 

TT recommends two instances of the TT User Setup Server be installed per trading environment. 

In larger environments, TT User Setup Server should be installed on a dedicated server-class 

machine. In smaller environments, customers may choose to install TT User Setup Server on a 

non-order entry client-class machine (e.g., on the same machine as X_RISK®), or on a serverclass 

machine that is also running Historical Fill Server or TTSIM Gateway.

Additional Best Practices for Client-Class Systems 

General 

• Keep hardware drivers up-to-date. If you have a choice between using Microsoft® drivers 

and vendor drivers, always use vendor drivers. 

• Check System Maintenance: 

• Schedule regular reboots of workstations (i.e., daily) to allow the cached data to be 

cleared, resources to be freed up and the page file to return to its original size. 

• Check disk space. 

• Use the Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter system tools once a month, while 

X_TRADER is NOT in use: 

• Turn off unneeded services. Set these services to manual startup in the Services 

dialog box. 

• Turn off Search Indexing. 

• Double-click My Computer and right-click on Local Disk C:. 

• Select Properties from the Context menu. 

• Deselect the check box next to Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast 

file searching. 

• Click Apply. To confirm, ensure the radial button next to Apply changes to C:, 

subfolders and files is selected and click OK. A few access denied errors may 

appear; acknowledge these by clicking Ignore to continue. 

Note: You can take advantage of the Indexing Service that creates indices of the contents 

and properties of all files on local and network drives in order to increase file searching 

speed. It is quite similar to “Find Fast” that ships with Microsoft Office. There is a downside 

in using this option as this service runs continuously and can slow down your 

machine’s general performance because it has to index files continuously. As a good 

practice, if you do not need slightly faster file searches, the feature can be safely turned 

off. Be aware that Indexing Service is turned on by default for all NTFS partitions. 

• Performance is dependent on the quality of video card and on the screen resolution that is 

set. It is best to minimize client windows that are not in use. Reducing the amount of data 

displayed will always yield increased performance. Additionally, set the screen resolution 

and color depth as low as possible for your desktop and client workspace(s). 

• If you use USB mice and keyboards, you must use USB 2.0 ports and devices. TT does not 

recommend using wireless mice/keyboards. 

• TT software is extremely sensitive to time changes; ensure time settings are changed only 

when TT Gateways are down. Reboot the workstation after you re-synchronize clock settings.

Third-Party Software 

General 

• Do not run MP3 or Streaming Video on the same machine when using client GUIs. 

• For third-party applications, disable Keyboard Hotkeys software. 

• Uninstall all Instant Messenger software. 

• Uninstall any other communications software (e.g., Skype). 

• Uninstall any application that connects to the Internet to receive updates (e.g., Google 

taskbar, Quicktime, Realplayer, etc.). 

Virus Protect Software 

• TT recommends not enabling real-time virus scanning on the TT directory and its subdirectories. 

• Any virus scanning on the TT directory should be performed during non-trading hours.

Appendix: Setting Descriptions 

NIC Settings 

These are explanations of the additional NIC settings that are implemented per TT’s recommendations. 

NIC Setting 

Description 

This setting was designed to allow the NIC to carry out checksum 

calculations rather than the application to reduce application 

overheads (e.g., Is this a good packet? If not, then drop). 

Checksum Offload = OFF 

Intel Quote: “Checksum Offload enables the adapter to verify 

the TCP/IP checksum on received packets (Rx) and compute 

checksum on transmitted packets (Tx). Enabling this feature 

may improve TCP/IP performance and reduce CPU utilization. 

With Offloading disabled, the operating system calculates and 

verifies the TCP/IP checksum.” 

It has been shown in practice that this setting impacts the performance 

of the trader’s workstation and as such TT recommends 

that it is disabled. 

Large Send Offload = OFF 

This setting was designed to allow the NIC to build larger 

packet sizes and reduce the overhead of multiple calls down 

the TCP stack, utilizing the standard 1500 byte size frames 

which would ultimately reduce host processing. This is more 

efficient if working in an ‘admin’ type network environment, 

but it has been shown to impact trader performance so TT recommends 

that it is disabled. 

IBM Quote: “If your primary concern is lower host CPU utilization, 

use this option. However, for best raw throughput, you 

should not enable this option because the data rate on the wire 

is slower with this option enabled.”

NIC Setting 

TCPChimneyOffload = OFF 

Description 

Microsoft Quote: “TCP Chimney Offload is a networking technology 

that allows the work associated with moving data 

across a network to be offloaded from the host computer’s 

CPU to the network adapter. This helps improve the processing 

of network data on your computer or server without the need 

for additional programs or any loss to manageability or security. 

Programs that are currently bound by network processing 

overhead will generally scale better when used with TCP 

Chimney Offload.” 

In reality, this setting has proven to slow down the throughput 

of data packets from the wire up through the TCP stack to the 

application (e.g., X_TRADER® Remote) – as TT data is 

packet-based, not stream-based. 

This setting enables the adapter to compute the IP checksum of 

outgoing packets. 

TX IP Checksum offload/Offload 

Transmit IP Checksum 

(Broadcom/Intel) 

• With Offloading disabled, the OS verifies the IP 

checksum. 

• With Offloading enabled, the adapter completes the 

verification for the OS. 

As with Large Send Offload, “for best raw throughput, you 


is slower with this option enabled.” 

This setting enables the adapter to verify the IP checksum of 

incoming packets. 

RX IP Checksum offload/Offload 

Receive IP Checksum 

• With Offloading disabled, the OS verifies the IP 

checksum. 

• With Offloading enabled, the adapter completes the 

verification for the OS. 

As with Large Send Offload, “for best raw throughput, you 


is slower with this option enabled.”

NIC Setting 

Description 

Microsoft Quote: “Receive Side Scaling enables the receive 

processing of networking traffic to be load balanced across 

multiple CPUs by leveraging new hardware in the NIC. It will 

dynamically balance the load as either system load or network 

traffic patterns vary. Any application that has significant networking 

traffic and runs on a multiprocessor host will benefit 

from RSS. 

Receive Side Scaling = OFF 

To help ensure application compatibility and security protection, 

TCP connection setup is not offloaded to the network 

adapter, only TCP data transfer. If any security policies conflict 

with a request to offload data transfer, the network connection 

will not be offloaded to the NIC, and will instead 

remain on the host TCP/IP stack, to ensure the system maintains 

robust security protection.” 

Quote from Intel: “When Receive Side Scaling (RSS) is 

enabled, all of the receive data processing for a particular 

TCP connection is shared across multiple processors or processor 

cores. Without RSS all of the processing is performed by 

a single processor, resulting in inefficient system cache utilization. 

Note: This setting has no effect if your system has only one 

processing unit.” 

RSS has caused issues with drops, out of order and duplicate 

packets in 2003 SP2, and a recent article from Microsoft recommends 

disabling this setting. 

Flow control = OFF 

Enable PME = DISABLE 

This setting is used to allow the NIC to manage the data flow 

between two machines. TT disables this and allows the application 

to drive the data flow through Windows Scaling, TCP 

Window Size, etc. 

In the Adapter’s Advanced Settings, there is a setting titled 

“Enable PME.” When PME is enabled, you can enable Wake 

on Settings which explicitly allows wake up with a Magic 

Packet from shutdown under APM power management mode. 

TT does not want anything to interfere with the process of trading 

so this is set to be disabled.

NIC Setting 

Description 

PC Interrupts are a necessary requirement for a workstation to 

carry out the necessary tasks required to make it a fully functional 

PC. An interrupt is something that is caused by processing, 

for example, a request for input or output or arithmetic 

overflow error. In order to dedicate as much ‘processing time’ 

to X_TRADER, TT sets this function to minimal to stop other 

superfluous functions interfering with X_TRADER, therefore 

giving X_TRADER maximum CPU priority. 

Internal Moderate Interrupt = 

MINIMAL 

Receive Descriptors = Set to 

Maximum Value 

Intel Quote: “Interrupt Moderation Rate sets the rate at which 

the controller moderates or delays the generation of interrupts 

making it possible to optimize network throughput and CPU 

utilization. The default setting (Adaptive) adjusts the interrupt 

rates dynamically depending on traffic type and network 

usage. Choosing a different setting may improve network and 

system performance in certain configurations. Without interrupt 

moderation, CPU utilization increases at higher data 

rates because the system must handle a larger number of interrupts. 

Interrupt moderation causes the network driver to accumulate 

interrupts and send a single interrupt rather than a 

series of interrupts. At higher data rates, a high interrupt moderation 

setting may improve system performance. At low data 

rates, a lower interrupt moderation setting is preferred as 

delayed interrupts cause latency.” 

Intel Quote: “Receive Descriptors defines the number of 

Receive Descriptors, which are data segments that enable the 

adapter to allocate received packets to memory. Depending on 

the size of the packet, each receive packet requires one or more 

Receive Descriptors. You might choose to increase the number 

of Receive Descriptors if you notice a significant decrease in 

the performance of received traffic. If receive performance is 

not an issue, use the default setting appropriate to the adapter. 

The default setting is 256.” 

For this reason, TT recommends that this setting be set to Maximum.

NIC Setting 

Transmit Descriptors = Set to 

Maximum Value 

Description 

Intel Quote: “Transmit Descriptors defines the number of 

Transmit Descriptors, which are data segments that enable the 

adapter to track transmit packets in the system memory. 

Depending on the size of the packet, each transmit packet 

requires one or more Transmit Descriptors. You might choose 

to increase the number of Transmit Descriptors if you notice a 

possible problem with transmit performance. Although 

increasing the number of Transmit Descriptors can enhance 

transmit performance, Transmit Descriptors do consume system 

memory. If transmit performance is not an issue, use the 

default setting of 512.” 

For this reason, TT recommends that this setting be set to Maximum. 

Number of Coalesce Buffer = 

16 

This setting specifies the number of memory buffers available 

to the driver in case the driver runs out of available Map Registers. 

This buffer area is also used when a packet consists of 

many fragments. If no coalesce buffers or map registers are 

available, the driver will be forced to queue the packet for later 

transmission. The preferred method of transmitting data is to 

use map registers because it is the most efficient method. If 

you are using Windows NT 3.50 and are having network performance 

problems, try increasing the coalesce buffers. The 

valid range of values for Coalesce Buffers is 16-768. 

TT recommends that this is set to 16 

Number of RX buffers = Maximum 

This setting specifies the number of buffers used by the driver 

when copying data to the protocol memory. The recommended 

value is usually 16. In high network load situations, increasing 

receive buffers can increase performance. The tradeoff is that 

this also increases the amount of system memory used by the 

driver. If too few receive buffers are used, network performance 

will suffer. If too many receive buffers are used, the 

driver will unnecessarily consume memory resources. The 

valid range of values for Receive Buffers is 80-3000. TT recommends 

that this is set to the maximum (2048 for Intel and 

3000 for Broadcom).

NIC Setting 

Number of TX buffers = Maximum 

Wake On = Disable 

Wake up Mode Cap = Disable 

Task Offload Cap = Disable 

Rx Coalescing Ticks= Disable 

Tx Coalescing Ticks = Disable 

Description 

This parameter determines the number of transmit buffers that 

are allocated by the driver when loaded, and thus significantly 

impacts the resources the driver consumes in the system (allocated 

memory). More transmit buffers allow more send operations 

to be in progress at one time, and thus potentially 

increases system performance – this also consumes more system 

resources. Setting this parameter too high can prevent the 

driver from loading due to insufficient system resources and 

runs the risk of the NIC dropping packets. The range of possible 

values for this parameter is 80-2048. TT recommends this 

is set to the maximum (2048). 

Wake on settings allow the user to set the adapter to wake up 

from a low power mode when it receives a network wake up 

frame. There are two wake up frames: Magic Packet and IP 

Frame. TT does not want anything to interfere with the process 

of trading and therefore we recommend that you disable this 

setting. 

Network adapters with appropriate NDIS 5 (and later) miniport 

drivers can increase the system performance by supporting 

hardware offload of Transmission Control Protocol/Internet 

Protocol (TCP/IP) CPU intensive tasks. However, we have 

found that enabling this setting does in fact have the potential 

to corrupt data at the packet level and therefore we recommend 

that you disable this setting. 

Configures the number of Rx Host Coalescing Ticks in microseconds. 

This determines the upper-bound threshold of the 

time interval that the device will generate an interrupt if one or 

more frames are received. 

When an interrupt is generated, the flow of data to and/or from 

the NIC is temporarily disrupted. TT does not want anything to 

interfere with the process of trading and therefore we recommend 


Configures the number of Tx Host Coalescing Ticks in microseconds. 

This determines the upper-bound threshold of the 

time interval that the device will generate an interrupt if one or 

more frames are sent. 




that you disable this setting.

NIC Setting 

Rx Max Coalesced Frames = 

Disable 

Tx Max Coalesced Frames = 

Disable 

Jumbo Packet = Disable 

Reduce Speed On Power 

Down = Disable 

Save Power Now Enabled = 

Disable 

Description 

Configures the number of Rx Maximum Coalesced Frames 

parameters. This determines the upper-bound threshold of the 

maximum number of Rx buffer descriptors that a device processes 

before it will generate an interrupt. 





Configures the number of Tx Maximum Coalesced Frames 

parameters. This determines the upper-bound threshold of the 

maximum number of Tx buffer descriptors that a device processes 

before it will generate an interrupt. 





In computer networking, jumbo packets are Ethernet packets 

with more than 1500 bytes of payload (MTU). Conventionally, 

jumbo packets can carry up to 9000 bytes of payload, but variations 

exist and some care must be taken when using the term. 

Many, but not all, Gigabit Ethernet switches and Gigabit Ethernet 

network interface cards support jumbo packets, but all Fast 

Ethernet switches and Fast Ethernet network interface cards 

support only standard-sized frames. However, we recommend 

disabling Jumbo Packets because we do not send packets with 

more than 1500 bytes of payload and therefore the larger 

throughput is not necessary. 

The Reduce Speed On Power Down and Save Power Now 

Enabled settings are triggered by inactivity on a PC and actually 

instruct the NIC card to reduce the connection speed to 

which it is set. This increases the chance that problems such as 

latency could occur, so TT recommends that you disable these 

settings.

Registry Settings (Windows XP) 

Table 1: 

Registry Setting TT Machine Description 

ArpCacheLife 

These are explanations of the additional NIC settings that are implemented per TT’s recommendations. 

ArpCacheMin- 

ReferencedLife 

Tcp1323Opts 

EnableTCPA 

EnableRSS 

EnableTCPChimney 

Server Machines, 

Client Machines 




Remote Hosts, 

WAN Routers 

Server Machines 



This sets the timeout for unused entries in the OS ARP 

Cache. By default, this key does not exist but is set to 

two minutes. TT sets this to one (1) hour. 

This sets the timeout for all entries in the OS ARP 

Cache. By default, this key does not exist but is set to 

10 minutes. TT sets this to two (2) hours. 

This allows a TCP receive window of larger than 64k 

to be advertised; it will only be seen during the SYN 

and will show up as a Windows Scaling multiplication 

factor. This is used when calculating the correct TCP 

Receive Window for a WAN connection. 

This is Net DMA NetDMA and it allows for a Direct 

Memory Access (DMA) engine on the Peripheral 

Component Interconnect (PCI) bus. This does not 

work if RSS and TCPChimney are turned off, but Microsoft 

recommends disabling it. 

This toggles Receive Side Scaling. Receive Side Scaling 

only works on multi-processor boxes and allows 

the incoming data to be processed across multiple 

CPUs. TT turns this off as it causes out of order packets, 

duplicate packets, or dropped data. This really only 

applies to TCP. 

This allows the OS to offload the TCP stack to the 

NIC. This is more efficient in that it allows the NIC 

CPU to process the TCP data and only pass up what is 

required. (This is only good in a streaming environment.) 

TT's data is small packets all with Push Bit set 

which means TT treats the TCP data more like a 

Packet-based Protocol - each packet is passed up to the 

applications. This is not an efficient use of offloading 

and does cause extra latency.

Table 1: 

Registry Setting TT Machine Description 

DisableTaskOffload 

IgnorePushBitOn 

Receives 

TcpAckFrequency 

SynAttackProtect 

TcpTmedWaitDelay 

TCPWindowSize 





Remote Hosts, 

WAN Routers 

Remote Hosts, 

WAN Routers 

Remote Hosts, 

WAN Routers 

This toggles checksum offloading. In general, offloading 

the checksum calculation to the device driver is 

supposed to free up the OS from doing the work; therefore, 

making the process more efficient. TT has tested 

this, and it shows that leaving the OS to do the work is 

actually faster and more efficient. 

This allows any incoming packets without Push Bit set 

to be treated as though they were sent that way. This 

makes the application more efficient by handling fragments; 

for example, say a 1500 byte packet turns up. 

Normally TCP would hold this until it receives what it 

assumes to be the end of the stream, or a packet with 

Push Bit set. This adds latency and can stall the application 

from handling the data because it is now waiting 

on the OS to pass it up. With this setting, TT's application 

can dissect the 1500 byte packet sent out - say 10 

prices - but retain a small fragment while waiting for 

the next packet to arrive. This means that data is send 

all the time, making it a more consistent flow. 

To make better use of the bandwidth the Nagle Algorithm 

is used. This means that it accumulates data until 

it receives an ACK from the receiving side; however, if 

delayed ACKs are turned on, it can create an even 

greater latency in sending and receiving data. 

This closes half open TCP connections faster so a SYN 

attack cannot create a resource failure. 

This decreases the time wait state for a closed TCP session. 

Normally the system takes three (3) minutes to 

recover the resource, but this can be set to 30 seconds. 

This allows us to set the size of the TCP receive window 

to suit the bandwidth of the line. This is now normally 

set in the TTM config file.

Network Time Settings 

Overview 

Network Time Protocol (NTP) is designed to synchronize computer clocks over a network. It is 

capable of achieving synchronization within microseconds, depending upon the synchronization 

source and the network paths. 

TT recommends synchronizing TT Gateways with a Time Server that meets the following 

requirements: 

• fully compatible with NTP v4+ 

• accurate within 1 second or less 

Note: TT does not recommend using Windows Time Service as it does not guarantee the level of 

accuracy that TT requires. For more information about NTP, refer to http://www.ntp.org/. 

Note: If Windows Time Service must be used due to network limitations that prevent connecting 

to external time sources, contact your TAM. 

Tip 

Time management is the responsibility of the TT client’s systems administrator. A large time 

change made to the operating system clock of a production TT Gateway during trading hours can 

cause problems, whether initiated by Windows Time Service, NTP, or even low CMOS batteries.

Hardware and Software Requirements - Trading Technologies

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