Faster Download Speeds with Super-Seeding

[Dude_McCool]

When I am downloading a file and there are a lot of peers (100+) and I turn on super-seeding, my dl speed goes much faster. Also, my ul speed drops to nearly zero. This doesnt always happen but it has several times. Is there an explanation for this? What exactly does super-seeding do? I mostly use a private tracker if that helps.

[Ultima]

Don't use super-seeding unless you know what you're doing, and unless you are seeding a torrent with 0 seeds (either a torrent you created, or a torrent that other seeds have forsaken)...

You should search for super-seeding in the forums. Previous threads already explain what it is and how it works...

[Dude_McCool]

Another interesting thing I found is if I set a dl limit to somthing a little higher than its average speed, it will increase to the limit.

Like if my dl speed is around 50kb/s and I set a limit at 75kb/s, my speed will increase to around 75kb/s. Anyone know why?

[Animorc]

Didn't work for me. It more like decreased my speed setting a limit 30kB/s over the actual downloadrate. I guess that's just coincidence from your side.

[Ultima]

Erm, like Animorc said, it definitely sounds like coincidence. The download limit doesn't limit your potential, nor does it improve it. It's an absolute cap, and that's all.

[ColdArmor]

Yeah, I don't see how that would make any difference...

[MechR]

Hmm, you can superseed while still downloading? Anyway, the higher download speed may have to do with how superseeding works. AFAIK, when superseeding, to the rest of the swarm it looks like you only have one piece of the file. Maybe you get more speed because you look like a new peer, so other peers' BT clients automatically assign you a higher priority.

This is just a guess, btw, I don't actually know.

Wikipedia on super-seeding.

[Wolfie]

The clue is in the second line:

Also, my ul speed drops to nearly zero.

The superseed setting slowed his upload enabling ACKs to return faster and speeded up his download. But this is not the recommended way to do it lol.

[splintax]

I think Wolfie has it right..

You should try limiting your upload speed to about 80% of your max speed using Settings > Network Options > Global max upload rate. This should increase your download speed. A quick explanation from the BT faq:

If you are seeing very high upload rates and low download rates, this is probably the case. The reason this happens is due to the nature of TCP/IP -- every packet received must be acknowledged with a small outbound packet. If the outbound link is saturated with BitTorrent data, the latency of these TCP/IP ACKs will rise, causing poor efficiency.