Torrent Downloads

[shiznit]

Hi,

When downloading torrents, why does it only use a small amount of available peers/seeds and not the full amount?


Cheers

[fo3nix]

Because unless you have an incredibly fast connection, you can't possibly make that many parallel connections.

[shiznit]

Hi fo3nix, I have the 20mb line from Virgin but only get the same kind of service as when I was with talktalk's 8mb line, does your answer still stand?


Thank you for the quick reply

[fo3nix]

What BitTorrent client are you using?

Most allow, at least in advanced settings, these numbers to be altered.

1) Do a speed test, when not using the internet at all (apart from speed test):
http://www.speedtest.net

The upload number is important.

2) Check this site:
http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Good_sett ings

Match your settings to roughly the settings required by that table (based on your upload rate, measured in 1)).

Basically you want to change your upload speed to match about 90% of your total upload speed (your app may measure in kB, not kb), and then also the number of max simultaneous connections).

But mainly, just because your download is quite large, your upload is still small. So, the connections are still going to be limited. (Doesn't have to be this small, but that's what most ISPs in the UK do...).

Also note that Virgin used to be a good ISP, but in the past few months seem to have started doing some more questionable things, to try and stop piracy, etc., at the expense of those using technologies like BitTorrent for legitimate purposes. This could also be a factor in your case, but that may be far more difficult to find out (and there's not much you can really do about it anyway if this is the case).

[dogbutter]

Hi Shiznit,

Broadly agree with fo3nix.

I looked for optimum client settings some time ago and eventually came up this:

uTorrent > Options > Preferences > connections > default port for incoming connections = any registered port (1024 - 49151) excluding the range 6881 - 6999.

Apparently this is the range where ISP's tend to throttle torrent traffic.

>max upload speed = 80% (of your upload speed)

>max download speed =95% (of your download speed)

Setting up/down speeds like this retains a usable bandwidth for surfing or other use allowing utorrent to run ALMOST transparently.

uTorrent > Options > Preferences > Bit torrent > max connected peers / torrent = your max upload speed x 1.3

>max upload slots / torrent = 1 + (your max upload speed / 6)

>enable outgoing protocol encryption.

I've had no problems with utorrent configured in this way Shiznit, achieving max upload speed and often downloading at 400KB/s

fo3nix,
Are VM throttling torrents? The B*st*rds.(Phorm and now this!) Anything else I should know ?

I don't know what client you're using Shiznit but utorrent is definetly the darling right now.


http://utorrent.en.softonic.com/

[shiznit]

im using transmission on a Mac