Some indicators are fairly complex and take time to process before they're displayed. NinjaTrader defaults to a very low number of bars, which makes it seem really fast regardless of complexity. We usually need to load more bars, which slows down all indicators a bit. Delays get more noticeable when more bars are added to a chart.
Even a beefy computer will get a slow response from complex indicators when a lot of chart bars are used. You may not realize that you’ve requested a large number of bars, though a very skinny slider scroll bar at the bottom of the chart reveals when you have a large number of bars. It can happen without realizing it when you use "Days" for the "Load data based on" attribute in Data Series settings with a very short bar timeframe, such as 1 minute. It’s even more likely with synthetic bars, like Renko. A single day of Renko bars can be a surprising number of bars, especially on something like NQ futures. If you switch your data series to use "Bars" rather than "Days", you can specify exactly how many bars are loaded, giving you better control over how many calculations the indicator needs to perform. A good target range is between 1000 and 2000 bars, but there may be times, such as during backtesting, when you want to use more.
Regardless, the indicator should show, even if it's slow to appear, but it shouldn't take minutes to appear. There may be times when the indicator doesn’t show, especially after adjusting the data series. Temporarily changing the timeframe often resets NinjaTrader, causing the indicator to reappear. This seems to be a bug in NinjaTrader, and hopefully it will be addressed in a future release of the NT platform. You can usually tell when the indicator calculations are complete by looking for the "Calculating...." message at the top of the chart, at the end of your list of indicators and their parameters. The message usually appears while it's still crunching the numbers, and disappears when it's done. There are instances when it takes time for your indicator to appear even after "Calculating..." disappears, but it should appear very soon afterward. If you're still not seeing an indicator, try temporarily switching to another timeframe and see if it then shows. We've noticed that "Calculating..." doesn't always appear when changing the number of bars on a chart, so be patient when changing to a larger number of bars - it's not always easy to 100% know when it's crunching the numbers.
In summary, if "Calculating..." appears for a long time, it's a sign that you have a lot of bars to support the indicators you’ve added, and you may benefit from reducing the number of bars. If "Calculating..." disappears and you're not seeing your indicator after a short delay, try temporarily switching to another timeframe to see if it appears, then return to your original timeframe. If neither of these works, you may have data corruption and could benefit from clearing the stored history cache. Using CTRL+Shift+R will reload the historical data for the current chart, though you may want to clear the history for all symbols if you're ok with clearing out past data.
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