Support Board
Date/Time: Tue, 29 Sep 2026 00:09:26 +0000
Font Sizes / Faces
View Count: 213
| [2026-08-14 16:39:18] |
| KylieV1618 - Posts: 79 |
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Hi Ive noticed that different Font sizes or faces, slow down everything to a crawl? Why is this. Sometimes Ill code a study, and it uses GDI text, and if I turn the text off it works fine, but if its on, everything slows to a crawl. But then if I change the font on the chart, it goes back to normal. So it seems to only be related to font faces / sizes?? Can you tell me what is the safest most optimal font to use, so I dont run into these issues?? Thanks |
| [2026-08-14 17:55:53] |
| User719512 - Posts: 489 |
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See Important: Understanding Fonts and Text when using Open GL and also search the forum for OpenGL or font, etc. In short, Sierra will work best with fewer fonts/faces/sizes and assuming you are using OpenGL, and this can be a major contributor to optimization. I have found that setting all of Sierra to use a single font like Segoe UI is best. Arial or Tahoma are fine, and sticking to one is my own personal best practice. For sizes, I use 7, 8, 9 globally and Normal/Regular for all. My custom studies are set to use Segoe UI as well. If you dig into how/why Sierra has to do its own work for every-single-font-size-and-face, you will realize the extra work involved to render any given screen with OpenGL. Sierra is very fast, but the graphics load is also not for free. You could at least baseline with streamlined settings, then add complexity, fonts, faces till you see a difference. Without knowing your CPU/GPU and more...no one answer is going fit and will vary among different users. |
| [2026-08-14 19:21:26] |
| KylieV1618 - Posts: 79 |
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Yeah, thats what Ive done. I stripped everything, and noticed whenever I have mismatching sizes, or font faces, then it all goes haywire and gets really slow. Like if I set my DOM quantities to Arial 12, and my chart to Segoe UI 10. So Im assuming the best bet is to just set everything at Segoe UI 10 and call it a day? I have many complex studies which Ive coded, which use variable sizes of the font. multipliers, that could end up being floats. Which I thought was the issue. So I made a clamping function to always clamp any of my font calculations, to int, but still run into the issues. Date Time Of Last Edit: 2026-08-14 19:23:00
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| [2026-08-14 20:00:10] |
| User719512 - Posts: 489 |
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You'll have to experiment, and for sure clamp sizes to int values. Keep in mind that (to the best of my knowledge) each of these consume one "font resource/allocation/calculation/rendering/drawing the font glyphs" and too many will slow your chart down: Segoe UI + 10pt + Regular Segoe UI + 10pt + Bold Segoe UI + 10pt + Italic Segoe UI + 11pt + Regular Arial + 10pt + Regular etc. |
| [2026-08-14 20:26:40] |
| Sierra_Chart Engineering - Posts: 24999 |
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We think the answers given here already are good. It would seem to make sense when using the GDI, not OpenGL, to stay with one particular font face and a limited number of sizes. As far as what particular font to use we are not sure. Whatever the operating system is able to draw in the least amount of operations but we are not sure what font that would be. Maybe the information here is helpful: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/design/signature-experiences/typography You might even want to try a fixed width console font. Would seem as though those are most efficient. Whatever has been used in the past, on textbased terminals would probably be the fastest. And definitely when using OpenGL you should stay with one font face for sure and a limited number of sizes as well. Sierra Chart Support - Engineering Level Your definitive source for support. Other responses are from users. Try to keep your questions brief and to the point. Be aware of support policy: https://www.sierrachart.com/index.php?l=PostingInformation.php#GeneralInformation For the most reliable, advanced, and zero cost futures order routing, use the Teton service: Sierra Chart Teton Futures Order Routing Date Time Of Last Edit: 2026-08-14 20:31:00
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