AmiBroker Knowledge Base » Installation

Recommended hardware/software for AmiBroker

Tomasz Janeczko — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:18:26 +0000

From time to time we receive questions from customers wanting to buy new computer asking about recommended hardware / software configuration to run AmiBroker.

We won’t focus too much on the details here as hardware evolves very fast, instead we will give some general information that will help you make informed buying decision.

AmiBroker, by itself is very fast and it is not very demanding. However, if user wants to run some very complex and long optimizations then it may be worthwhile to think about choosing proper hardware / software configurations.
The two most critical components are CPU and RAM. AmiBroker is able to fully saturate CPU and RAM so these two should be selected with more care. The other components do not really matter much.

Currently (as of October 2011) we can recommend:

CPU: Intel i7 or i5 CPU. 4 (or more) cores recommended. AmiBroker is multi-threaded application and is able to utilize as many cores as your CPU has. AMD processors are good too, but not as fast as i7.
RAM: 6GB or more (triple channel), or 8GB (dual channel). Triple channel recommended, however dual channel is OK too. With more memory you would access disk less and RAM is orders of magnitude faster than disk.
HDD: it can be any hard disk, good brand is Western Digital Caviar Black. 1 TB (terabyte) is enough for all measures. With regards to SSD (solid state) disks – they are very fast, but be aware of many reliability issues that plague some SSD disks (Intel and Crucial seem to be most reliable, other brands are questionable). That said, recently I changed to dual SSD/HDD drive setup. Crucial m4 64GB SSD disk as my system-only drive and mechanical drive for programs and data. No problems so far, but the reliability of SSD is yet to be proven. In case of system failure, make sure to have full disk image made on frequent basis (see below). Disks fail, sooner or later – be prepared.
Graphic card: any card that has WDDM v1.1 drivers is OK. This is so because in Windows 7 GDI is more efficient when using WDDM 1.1 drivers. Personally we use nVidia cards.
Sound card: any
Motherboard: any. Personally we use Asus motherboards.
Monitor/display: any with DVI/HDMI connection. Digital (DVI/HDMI) gives better picture quality. Personally we use EIZO monitors.
Power supply: it is important to get stable and adequately strong power supply. Instable power can give some mysterious problems.
Internet connection: via hardware router with NAT (Network Address Translation) and built-in firewall. Good hardware router with firewall is your first line of defense and should make your computer completely invisible (”stealth” mode) to any potential attackers. I can recommend Linksys routers. For example good and inexpensive router is Linksys WRT54GL. This particular router allows loading open-source firmware that is way better than one shipped with the router.
If you are enabling Wi-Fi access on the router make sure to use WPA2/PSK authentication and long password.

With regards to software:

OS: Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium or higher. “Home” version is perfectly adequate. 64-bit allows you to use more memory.
Firewall: Windows 7 has built-in firewall that is perfectly enough, especially if you are behind the router (see above)
Anti-virus: Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) – it is good and free. What is even more important, it does not slow down your system. It is good idea to exclude data folder(s) and data files from virus scan/monitoring. Some other antiviruses are very bad when it comes to affecting normal operation of Windows. MSE does not break your OS.
Disk imaging: it is very good idea to make backups of your disks using disk imaging software so you can restore your system in case of failure or virus infection in a matter of 4-5 minutes instead of hours. Good imaging software is Macrium Reflect Free or Acronis True Image. True Image was a winner some years ago, but now it is rather bloated, so we would rather recommend free Macrium Reflect.
It is recommended to divide your hard disk into at least 2 partitions, one for system and one for programs/data, or better 3 partitions system/programs/data. Then you will be able to easily make an image of your hard disk (especially system partition) and restore image without problems. Also in case of virus infection it is easier to restore system partition only instead of entire disk. It is faster and way more reliable than attempts to “cure” any computer virus.
Don’t install things you don’t need. Especially beware of any “enhancers” and “turbo” programs. They do nothing but harm. The less software you install on your computer, the more stable it will be.

How to migrate AmiBroker to a new computer

Marcin Gorzynski — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 10:59:45 +0000

First of all it is absolutely necessary to run full setup on the new system to ensure proper configuration and appropriate access rights on the new system. Running full setup first is essential, as copying old files alone is NOT enough and will lead to problems.

The setup program can be downloaded from:

http://www.amibroker.com/download.html

Once the program has been installed – you can either activate the program (if you want to start with a fresh copy) or also restore your settings from the old computer.

If you want to start with a fresh installation, then it’s enough to run the software activation wizard. To get a copy you can use the form at:
http://www.amibroker.com/lostkey.html

If you want to transfer all data from the old computer, after running full setup on a new computer, you should copy the entire contents of AmiBroker folder from the old computer (with all the databases) into the location you have installed AmiBroker on the new machine (see the installation path above), overwriting the existing files.

If you want to copy just layouts / charts, then it is enough to copy the following:
- *.awl files from Layouts folders inside AmiBroker main folder and inside database folder (holding layouts calling certain charts recognized by their ID)
- broker.newcharts file which contains list of charts (their IDs) and their corresponding formula files
- contents of Formulas folder – to have formula referenced by certain charts
This is because layouts refer to certain charts recognised by their chart ID number. So all elements have to be present.

More information about files used by AmiBroker can be found at:
http://www.amibroker.com/guide/x_files.html

Single license use on multiple computers?

Tomasz Janeczko — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 17:21:22 +0000

That is the common question we receive through support channel, so even though it is explained in the LICENSE.TXT file that you have in your AmiBroker folder, let us make some facts straight.

First take a look what the license says:

“REGISTERED VERSION:
One registered copy of the program may either be used by a single person who uses the software personally on one or more computers, or installed on a single workstation used non-simultaneously by multiple people, but not both.
You may not disclose registration key(s) to non-registered users.
Storage/Network Use. You may also store or install a copy of the Software on a storage device, such as a network server, used only to install or run the Software on your other computers over an internal network; however, you must acquire and dedicate a license for each separate computer on which the Software is run from the storage device. A license for the Software may not be shared or used concurrently on different computers.”

So the answer to most common question: “Can I install and use it on both desktop and laptop?” is YES, you can.

It is however NOT allowed to use single license to RUN SIMULTANEOUSLY on MULTIPLE machines connected via network, like for example running optimization on many machines in parallel. For that you must purchase license for every machine you are using simultaneously.

Running AmiBroker on Windows Vista (both 32 and 64 bit editions)

Tomasz Janeczko — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 00:12:27 +0000

Generally speaking AmiBroker (both versions: 4.80.2 official and 4.87.1 latest beta) run fine on Windows Vista RC1 32 bit and 64 bit editions (yes we checked it).

You can see the screenshot here:
http://www.amibroker.com/gifs/AmiBrokerOnVista64.png

The only issue that you may face is when running AmiBroker registration wizard (it will display error message at the end) but this can be easily resolved following these steps:

You need to save ABReg.exe onto your disk
Then you need to click on ABReg.exe icon with RIGHT mouse button and select “PROPERTIES” from the menu
In the properties screen you have to check “Run As Administrator” checkbox and press OK.

Now registration program will work fine without any errors.

The reason why it did not work is that Vista by default runs programs with “regular user” privileges (even if logged onto the system as admin) and this is causing problems when program is trying to write files with .exe
or .dll extensions.

One final note: when installing x64 version on 64 bit Vista please do not forget to install run-time libraries first as instructed here.

Feb 26, 2007 UPDATE: all those little issues are now fixed with release of AmiBroker 4.90 and new setup program that takes care about all access rights, so this article no longer applies and you can run AmiBroker 4.90 on Vista without problem.