Enable Automatic Fast Market mode
In certain circumstances, it is possible for an extreme surge in volume to result in the program getting behind on the processing of ticks. Investor/RT users can enable Fast Market Mode by going to File > Preferences > Performance and checking the box entitled Automatic Fast Market Mode.
To the right of this label, you will see an Input labeled for Secs on Symbol. Enter a symbol here that you'd consider to be your most active symbol and Investor/RT will use this symbol as a benchmark for when to turn Fast Market Mode on or off automatically. The idea here is that your most active instrument will likely be the one that will fall behind first in a Fast Market and when this happens, Investor/RT will go into Fast Market mode automatically. During Fast Market mode, Investor/RT rapidly processes incoming trade data until the benchmark symbol has no more lag, then normal feed processing resumes automatically.
How does Fast Market mode work
When Fast Market Mode is on, Investor/RT streamlines the reception of certain non-trade information (bid/ask changes) and skips notification of charts and quotepage as it works through awaiting data until incoming tick data is close to real-time again. Sound events Fast Market and Normal Market (see Preferences > Sounds) are triggered when Investor/RT begins and ends this fast market processing. Fast Market settings includes a Tick Rate that controls how frequently Investor/RT notifies charts of incoming ticks during FM Mode. This is, in effect, the flow rate at which trades will be reported to chart during fast market mode, e.g. every 500 milliseconds. When Investor/RT leaves Fast Market Mode, all trades are again reported to each open window watching the symbol.
Enable Fast Market mode manually
To enable Fast Market mode manually, click on the Heartbeat button in main toolbar and choose "Fast Market Mode: Turn on For 15 Sec". 15 Second is generally plenty of time to get the program caught up. You can also click on the Heartbeat button and choose Performance Preferences. There you can setup Investor/RT to automatically turn FM mode on when a certain symbol gets behind (lags) for a certain number of seconds. A common setting for this might be a lag of a few seconds ES (@ES#, ES #F, ESZ0, EPZ20, etc).