peer dl. means what?

[µtorrent-Guest]

Looked in the FAQ and looked around in the forums but can't find this Question answered.

What does a value in this column actualy mean?

"Down speed" and "Up Speed" is clear i think.

But what is "Peer dl." value indicating when there is a value shown (not always the case)?

Does it indicates the speed this peer is uploading to others or is it indicating the speed he is downloading ?

Thanks for an answer and escuse my bad english! just a stupid German "Kraut" i am ;-)

[Ultima]

It's the estimated speed at which the peer is downloading.

[tyskis]

the speed he is downloading, but it's calculated, and i think not very accurate

Edit: to slow

[mike18xx]

What I would REALLY like to see is a "Peer ul" column -- it'd be great during initial-seeding to determine who is and who ain't capable (or inclined) of trading away new blocks as fast as they're downloading them from you.

[Ultima]

If it's already difficult enough as it is to estimate the peer's download speed, how are we supposed to guess his upload speed? The BitTorrent protocol does NOT describe any way to do this as it's not a part of the messages sent between peers.

[µtorrent-Guest]

mike18xx what you can do to make sure he gives away fast to others is to tich the "initial seeding" box. That way he gets only new pieces if others in the swarm report to you that they got the prior one from him already!

[iemsley]

A follow-on question:

Is peer dl the (estimated) TOTAL download speed of the peer, including what it's uploading from me?

In other words, if there were only 2 of us in the swarm then "Peer dl." ~= "Up Speed"?

Thanks!

[BlueDragon]

@iemsley

Good old thread and good question too IMO.

What I can say is that according to my experience I'm very sure that it includes everything e.g. also what you are uploading to the peer, so yes it should be like you say more or less 'peer.dl' = uploaded speed for this single peer set.

If I am not wrong (else please anybody correct me) the 'peer dl' is calculated based on the information your client receives from the connected peer about the completed pieces. So it must be put in relation with some average elapsed time between the last completion and because the size of the pieces is known it allows a speed calculation.

By the way it's not always working besides the fact that it takes some time to be displayed. The delay might be due to the missing or simply to slow incoming information about completed pieces but I also think that some clients (brands) do not offer a full compatibility for this feature.