Please help me get consistent speeds

[mashedpotato]

Hi

I have been using bittorrent for a while now, and I have only once been downloading at my full speed.

That was with the test torrent: Win32Intel_Install.exe., and it went at about 240kbs which is pretty much my max speed.

I have 2mb/128k ADSL

I have used bitcomet, azureus and now utorrent.

I usually can't get good speeds for my connection. For me torrents usually download at about 15-60kbs which is nowhere near my max.

I have port forwarded on my Netgear DG632. I have XP SP2.

Here are my settings:

Listening port: 32459

Global max connections: 200

Max connected peers per torrent: 50

Upload slots: 4

(Use additional upload slots if <90%) checked

Enable Scraping: checked

Pre allocate disk space: unchecked

Enable DHT (and for new torrents) both checked

I have changed some of the advanced settings as someone said possibly on this site.

I have AVG 7

Maybe I don't have a problem because I did download at my max on the test, but then I never get speeds like that with other torrents

Please help me improve my speeds!

I'm sure I have probably left out useful information, so don't hesitate to ask for any other information.

Thanks!

[1c3d0g]

Your problem is that you have a severe download/upload ratio discrepancy. :| On an average torrent with even seeds and peers, you can expect twice your upload for your download, and on a less than ideal torrent (which is pretty much every public torrent) you should be happy if you get equal download speeds as your upload. Like I said to so many other people: be realistic. This isn't like your regular P2P network, it's the BitTorrent network and speeds rise and fall as seeds/peers come and go.

[Firon]

With such a low upload speed, it's nearly impossible to get good speeds with torrents.

[Switeck]

I'd reduce Upload slots (from 4) to 3 or even 2.

Your max effective upload is only 9-12 KB/sec, and you probably can only reach 12 KB/sec while seeding with nothing downloading. So put 9 KB/sec for upload speed.

Might as well disable DHT if you're using torrents with >10 peers+seeds. The upload overhead costs of DHT aren't worth it for connections with low upload bandwidth.

Global max for connections defintely can be reduced to 100.

Max connected peers per torrent is ok at 50 -- it'd probably even work well at 30, if you wanted to free up a little more upload bandwidth.

Running more than 2 torrents at once (if they have enough peers+seeds) will definitely be slower than doing 1 torrent at at time. So limit max torrents to 3 and downloading torrents to 2.

After a torrent is finished, if you're wanting to get an upload/download ratio of 1 a little quicker, reduce that torrent's upload slots to 1 or 2.

[mashedpotato]

Hi, thanks for the help so far, I have made all the changes Switeck suggested, thanks!

I've got a few more questions.

If I can't ever get good speeds as Firon said, then why do I download at my max speed on the Win32Intel_Install.exe torrent?

Also, would Private trackers be much faster? And would IRC be fine with my low upload? Because you don't really upload anything on IRC so would I be able to get good speeds on that?

[Firon]

On -normal- torrents (where there aren't hundreds of 10/100Mbit seeds) you probably can't get reasonable speeds with such a low upload speed.

Some private trackers may be faster, but you'll have to spend a long time uploading back to a good ratio.

[chaosblade]

I know i can get >100KB/s speeds with my upload (96kbits, i upload at 9KB/s capped) on fairly new and seeded torrents (like big fresh anime torrents and such). But unless you're on a tracker that forces people to share properly (ratio sites), Most people dont upload as much and as a result you wont get those speeds. I know i dont. Thats just how it is in the public scene :]