# Can one force NMaximize to continue for a specified time?

So that it is not allowed to quit (for any optimization Method) before this time has elapsed.

• It doesn't really make sense to force it to compute for a certain amount of time, but you can force it do more iterations by adding the option MaxIterations -> 10000 or something. – march Jun 6 at 4:35
• Can you explain what you actually want to achieve? meta.stackexchange.com/q/66377/164803 – Szabolcs Jun 6 at 7:38
• You'll find the list of available methods and their sub-options here: reference.wolfram.com/language/tutorial/… – Szabolcs Jun 6 at 7:41
• Thanks, I'm familiar with the tutorial. The optimizer needs to explore a fitness landscape that I suspect is very rough and discrete. There may be multiple maxima with the same fitness value. In some known cases I've tested, it quits before finding any of these maxima. I want it to keep looking indefinitely (hopefully more intelligently than a random search) and when it finds a maximum (sinceI know what it's fitness value will be - what I'm looking for are the optimal input values) it can then exit. – spaced Jun 6 at 7:54