Why is it that on bit torrent i have to wait a while before downloads start even if there are more seeders than leechers?

[mkjuk]

how to uploads from other users affect my download speeds from other users?

[Mattk]

you are not alone.you're upload speed is supposed to be linked to your download speed but i find that on most files my upload speed is at maximum ie 30k-ish/second but my dl speed fluctuates at an average of approx 15k/second.

i think the wait is basically down to sorting the seeds into order.

i have read that bt has something to do with opening certain ports so i would be interested to read if anyone has any further info also.

[fo3nix]

The optimum settings for BitTorrent is to use almost all of your upload bandwidth, and then as much as the download speed as possible.

If you run azurues (recommended in your other question), then take a look at this:
http://azureus.aelitis.com/wiki/index.php/Good_settings

It's also useful for other clients though, if they offer the same sort of cotrol that Azureus does.

Also worth doing is changing the port number. I think the default is 6881. Change it to something like 49255. If you're running azureus, make sure you get no NAT errors (there's a tool under the tools menu to check for this). Also in azureus, you should get a face on the left with a big smile, meaning everything is working fine.

As for the speeds of torrents, it depends on the torrent. If you try downloading something like OpenOffice, then you should find that you get very fast download speeds (whenever I download it, on a 2Mb connection, I get download speeds of about 220kbps).

[Mattk]

why,when you download a file that has literally 1000's of seeds and leechers does it still come down slow ?

let me check i understand the basic principle of bt....

seeder = someone who has posted the file

leecher = someone who is downloading the file(i assume we can piggy back on their dl?)

peer = ?

sorry for jumping on your question here mkjuk !

[fo3nix]

http://www.bittorrent.com/introduction.html