Good practice

[MrJuggles]

Hey there,

I guess I still class as a noob just by the fact I've been using Utorrent at it's most basic level for a while now, but not really paying attention. I did try to read around here to learn more but I keep getting myself beffuddled, it'll come with time i guess.

A few questions do pop to mind though

I know they say share the ratio up to 1.0, but does it make much difference to go to 2.0 if I have the option of leaving this PC I might as well.

What if I download something that I think is duff or really not worth sharing again, it seems wrong to pass that on but won't it effect my sharing ratio?

And a cheeky one can someone link to all those little things you can do to teak this to it's full potential. I did the port forwarding with some ease, and I think I sort of understood why that was needed, lol.

What a great little tool, I only wish I knew what all the tabs and information means.

thanks for all your time

Mr Juggles

[Ultima]

- Sharing above 1.0 is a courtesy to the swarm, but its always a nice thing to do if possible.

- Yes, not sharing, no matter how bad the material, will lower your ratio

- There isn't much you need to do to optimize µTorrent, really. Just pick the correct upload rate in the Speed Guide, make sure the port is forwarded, and you're pretty much done. Sometimes, some things might need tweaking, and sometimes, you just can't get around certain problems (like throttling techniques used by many ISPs).

[MrJuggles]

That's cool. I'll go look at the speed guide as soon as the son and wife are of thier PC's as I know it said it needed to be free of all web traffic.

Another quickie. Say I do share really well, an average of 2.0 per torrent, how long before I notice a difference in my downloads. Not that I'm expecting something whizz bang whallop noticeable, just curious to how long before these things take effect.

[Ultima]

Overall ratio doesn't affect your overall speed. In fact, ratios don't directly affect speeds in BitTorrent. What it is is that the more you upload data to other peers, the more likely they will be to reciprocate your generosity by preferring to share data with you rather than other peers. The result is that you generally should see improved download speeds if you upload more.

What this all means is that ratios don't work on a global basis, but instead, on a per-torrent basis. There is no set "time" that it'll take for you to see improved speeds. I've seen it nearly immediately sometimes, not-so-immediately other times.

[MrJuggles]

I'm living up to my signiture I wrote over two years ago, isn't uploading when you seed and wouldn't that affect your ratio? I'm guessing not.

[jewelisheaven]

Seeding refers to when you have the whole file to share (and are not downloading). Hopefully you're also uploading while you download. Once you are Seeding (check the status in the main listview) your ratio can only increase.

[Ultima]

Yes, uploading improves ratios, but that doesn't answer your original question. You were asking when you should expect your download speeds to improve by improving your ratio, to which I responded that there is no set expectation, because speeds aren't tied directly to ratio.