another bittorent question!

[phillai]

try setting max upload and download speeds to 200kb and see if that helps, it's give and take with BT's, even with a 2mb line you may only get 5kb if the torrent is popular/there aren't many seeds.

Just done what ya said. All my 9 torrents I'm downloading have all turned green now but it's slower than before, averaging 20k as compared to around 80-90k.

Also, I've got about 6 torrents seeding and the upload is mega slow and although I have downloaded it fully it still shows up as 0 seed to others...

What settings have you got for tools --> options --> transfer?
default max upload slots?
max number of connections per torrent?
max number of connections globally?

Also, what settings have you got for tools --> options --> queue?
Max Simultaneous downloads?
Max active torrents?

Sorry for being a pain, this is really pissing me off...

One last thing. Someone tells me that I either shouldn't be downloading alot at once or not seeded alot at once. What is correct here?

[phillai]

I have it set at 180 KB/s down and between 5 and 25 KB/s up depending on the time of day.

When I leave the PC on overnight I set it to the higher uplaod as I am not surfing then.

Oh, and don't forget to use Peerguardian.

What's the benefit of setting a max download speed? I'd have thought it'd be best set on zero for unlimited as I had done before and I've always had an upload of 20k.

Anyway, what does peerguadian do and where can I get it from? It's not listed as a plugin for some bizarre reason!

[VR46]

I've altered first three settings on first one, everything else (and on second pic) default I believe ?, don't lose sleep over BT's, there seems to be no guaranteed way to download quickly, PS I'm only on 1mb line.

[phillai]

Hmmm... Mixed results now. Slightly faster at 30k but still slow but I might not be giving it enough time.

Does the port setting matter here and here?

tools --> options --> connection?
Incoming TCP listen port

tools --> options --> tracker --> server?
Enable tracker on HTTP port

Mine are different... I notice I have some minor success if I change the port number on this from 6881 to something else...

tools --> options --> connection?
Incoming TCP listen port

[VR46]

dunno tbh, I'm no expert, you tried google ?

[phillai]

Believe me I have. I thought you guys were experts!

[VR46]

nah, I just start in going in the morning and swear at it when I get home from work and it's not done

Would leave most settings at default though and only alter upload/download speeds and number of connections etc.

[phillai]

lol
Thing is, I can't remember what is default and there is no default button to press!

[Fei Fong Wong]

You should change your port from the default and here's why: http://www.bamber.org/wiki/ow.asp?PortIsBlacklisted

You shouldn't limit your down or up speeds either. Thats what causes torrents to go slow. Just because others do it and may cause the torrent to go slow doesn't mean you should do the same and contribute to the problem.

The other main reason for torrents being slow is other users being firewalled (not connectable). The Bit Tornado website has a good explanation of this but I can't link to it directly as the page is blocked by my employer. The main site address however is www.bittornado.com You should be able to find the page I mean.

[mid]

You shouldn't limit your down or up speeds either. Thats what causes torrents to go slow.

Unless you're like me, and leave ABC seeding quietly in the background at a few k/sec while you're busy playing a game. Some bandwidth is better than none, and I'm not giving it priority over the packets I need.

[Pavey]

Just found this explanation,and thought i'd post it.

Get it out of your head right now that you can just download to the max and cap your upload, to get the file faster and then pay back the torrent when you have got it. The principals of how BT works is that a file is broken into pieces, the uploader sends these pieces out, in linear order or if in superseed mode, where needed (never superseed, just causes too many problems!) If you have four peers and one uploader, with the uploader setting their client to connect to four peers, each peer will receive a different piece, most likely in order, peer one statistically will receive pieces 1, 5, 9, 13, 17. This means that whilst downloading the pieces of the torrent off the uploader, you want to be downloading the pieces already given out by the uploader, and in turn, those peers want every other peers pieces.

I am going to describe two broadband lines and average speeds you will see, and beginner with one of these two lines has it easy now. 512/256 you can download at 50/51kbs whilst uploading 20kbs at the same time 1Meg/256 you can download about 100/102 whilst uploading 20kbs at the same time.

Are you bored waiting and go start another smaller torrent while you are waiting (that won't work, now your upload speed is divided between two torrents, making the problem worse!)

Has the uploader decided that with their fantastic foreign line that they will upload 4 DVD's worth of data at the same time? Are you starting to panic, thinking that with your line, by the time you get the first torrent, and pay back, the next torrent won't be working anymore?

So, what are you going to do? Jump on all 4 torrents? Give an average upload speed of 5kbs to each torrent? Not care about damaging the speeds of the torrents, because "cool torrent mate! I'll keep my client open for weeks to keep this beauty alive!" yeah, well at 5kbs you will need weeks to pay all the torrents back.

This is where everyone has to understand a very simple fact about torrents, that sadly many people are choosing to ignore. By not uploading the pieces you received from the uploader, YOU are damaging the torrent. YOU are doing it, it's YOUR fault. Patterns emerge, people ban your IP in their client, days, weeks, months from now the IP's have been exchanged between uploaders and stuck in trackers. there comes a time when your speeds go to hell, you can't get data off people, everything's so slow you start to bitch and whine about the speeds, without comprehending that maybe your actions in the first place caused this. That IP might even get shared with BT sites where I know people can enter the IP in their tracker and who in turn trust me to make educated decisions and not be juvenile about this sort of thing.

So, everybody think about the health of torrents. DON'T cap your upload and DON'T try and get too many torrents at once.

Think carefully and pass the word, the information and reasoning on how to properly maintain a torrent needs to be in everyone's minds and acted upon.


Make sense?

Nick

[Rossco]

I always stick it to unlimited. I feel I getter better speeds in general that way anyway!

[Taurine]

DON'T cap your upload and DON'T try and get too many torrents at once.

Make sense?

No it doesn't make sense technically. I think the original point being made here is "don't cap your upload to some piddling little number, breaking the sharing concept inherent in BitTorrent" and that I do agree with. But if you want to maintain a decent download speed, don't leave your upload completely uncapped. Here's why...

Every packet you receive (download) prompts your computer to send back (upload) an ACK packet. If the sender doesn't receive it they don't send you the next packet in the sequence.

If you are connected to a popular torrent, you can easily max out your upload. This will REDUCE your download speed because the ACKs cannot be sent. Because ADSL (and cable) give you more downstream bandwidth than upstream, you will never have trouble receive ACKs from people you upload to, so your uploads become dominant.

So to recap, you will maximise your download speed if you cap your upload a *few* kbps short of your maximum potential upstream. For most ADSL users that means an effective ceiling of 25kbps uploads. Much more and your download speeds will suffer.

Another mis-conception I've seen here was the suggestion that more popular torrents download slower. That is the opposite of how BitTorrent works. Because the downloaders contribute to the overall download bandwidth through sharing the bits they do have, the download speed INCREASES the more popular it becomes.

If you really want good advice on improving your torrent download speeds, look at the FAQs around the net. FAQs get scrutinized and corrected if they are wrong. If, like most people, you find the torrents on tracker websites, go into the site's forum and look for a stickied post about how to best set up Azureus to both maximise your download and protect your ratio.

[MartyG]

Because the downloaders contribute to the overall download bandwidth through sharing the bits they do have, the download speed INCREASES the more popular it becomes..

Up to a point - the point at which the average completion % is hit, after which it will drop if there are only a few seeds.

[Fei Fong Wong]

FAQ's are indeed a good source of information. I would add the following (part of an FAQ written by TooMuchTime):


Do not immediately jump on new torrents

In particular, do not do it if you have a slow connection. The best speeds will be found around the half-life of a torrent, when the SLR (seeder to leecher ratio) will be at its highest. (The downside is that you will not be able to seed so much. It's up to you to balance the pros and cons of this.)


Limit the number of simultaneous connections

Some operating systems (like Windows 9x) do not deal well with a large number of connections, and may even crash. Also some home routers (particularly when running NAT and/or firewall with stateful inspection services) tend to become slow or crash when having to deal with too many connections. There are no fixed values for this, you may try 60 or 100 and experiment with the value. Note that these numbers are additive, if you have two instances of a client running the numbers add up.


Limit the number of simultaneous uploads

Isn't this the same as above? No. Connections limit the number of peers your client is talking to and/or downloading from. Uploads limit the number of peers your client is actually uploading to. The ideal number is typically much lower than the number of connections, and highly dependent on your (physical) connection.