bt.prio_first_last_piece

[dezzo]

Can anyone offer a better explanation of what the "bt.prio_first_last_piece" advanced option does?

And why would someone wish to use it?

Thanks

[dAbReAkA]

gives higher priority to the first and last piece so that the file could be previewed

[dezzo]

Ahh ok, I understand now.

Does enabling this option cause the file to take longer to download, or are there any other drawbacks to using it?

[rafi]

gives higher priority to the first and last piece so that the file could be previewed

I did not know that for pre-viewing a partial file you need the last piece. I though the more important is to have all/most of the pieces from start to point X in the file ... Unless you mean to play the file as a whole ?

A drawback can be - the need to pre-allocate disk space needed for the whole file soon after starting the DL.

[chaosblade]

More to the way AVI files are made.. you need the first and last pieces to preview video usualy.

[Firon]

rafi: it always allocates the entire file whenever it has to write any data for it, so that doesn't make a difference

dezzo: the ramp up time is a little longer, but that's about it

[MrCoke]

thank you for adding the feature to disable the prioritizing of these peices. it only makes sense this would slow down the spread of a torrent because if everyone is trying to get the first and last peice of the file it will bottleneck the swarm.

[donjoe]

No it won't, the availability of the first and last piece will just be higher than for the rest of the file and it will be easier for anyone to get them after a short while.

New question: does this setting apply immediately or do I have to restart uTorrent (2.0.2)?

[Switeck]

Depends on how high the priority level is on if it'll cause any torrent swarm issues.

If every new peer demands 1st and last pieces from all seeds they connect to, then pieces that NO other peers have will be harder to get and the whole swarm will suffer.

On the other hand, if every new peer still gives rare pieces a high(er?) priority than this, it likely won't hurt.