Number of active torrents based on speed of torrents

[Eleo]

Let's say I have several torrents loaded in uTorrent. By default X will be running, regardless of how slow or fast they're going. I might start some torrents and go to bed, wake up and find maybe one of them has finished because they're all running at 5KB/s.

What if, instead of specifying how many torrents I want running, uTorrent could determine this dynamically? Let's say I specify that my total download bandwidth allows me to download at 150KB/s max. uTorrent is going to use this info and start as many torrents as necessary to max out my download speed (or whatever I specify the max download speed should be); meaning if each torrent is going really slow, at around 5KB/s or so, and I happen to have 30 torrents loaded, all of my torrents will be running. If I have 30 torrents running but the torrent at the top of the list is using all my bandwidth, all of the other torrents will be on queue.

I, for one, know that I prefer one torrent to be running if it is going as fast as my connection will allow; I'd rather have one torrent finish quickly than two torrents finish in twice the time. However I also know I am frustrated when I step away from the computer for several hours and very few torrents have finished because they are going to incredibly slow, and knowing that if I had perhaps moved them farther down the list or Force-Started some other torrents there would have been more overall progress.

Obviously the logic here could get fuzzy, but I think it would be a great improvement overall.

Thanks for the best BitTorrent client in existence!

[Nefarious]

well, the problem is the way bittorrent is implemented, there would be more factors than just what download speed are you having actually, i mean if u end up having too many conection per torrent, that will make an over slow down that wont help any of ur torrents finish early, in fact u may end up seeing too much net traffic when u are getting just too low on utorrent itself since u are making just too many connections that the overhead becomes too high, u could always lower the connections per torrent to lower the overhead, but then u would end up with just too few connections to keep the work for lets say your 30 opened torrents

[Firon]

It used to do this, and it was removed due to user complaints. In any case, you shouldn't really be running many torrents.

[Nefarious]

use the speed guide, u didnt tell how hight is ur upload but i guess, it would tell you to use a maximum 3 downloads at a time, u can always put the others in queue

[Eleo]

It used to do this, and it was removed due to user complaints. In any case, you shouldn't really be running many torrents.

I don't get why it would be removed. As long as it's optional, it shouldn't be a huge deal. It would be unfair for a user to go "I don't want to use this optional feature that I can turn of/off at any time; get rid of it."

I know that this may not work perfectly due to overhead; or the fact that certain variables can cause torrents to speed up or slow down mid-download. I'd personally rather have it implemented imperfectly than not at all.

I'm sure the number of connections is a factor, but most torrents don't require a huge amount of connections; generally torrents that do are public torrents of a recently-pirated movie or some sort, most torrents I download usually have 10-20 seeds and peers total. My assumption would be that the total overhead for say, 400 connections would be negligible in the face of the amount of pieces sent.

[Nefarious]

u can always go back to a version that use what u were asking for then

[Eleo]

Sorry for suggesting a potentially useful feature and giving logical reasons to support why it would be helpful to users of uTorrent.

[Nefarious]

now... i think u are just being sarcastic there...

[SanctimoniousApe]

Found this by searching before posting (yeah, it actually happens once in a while).

I would like this feature as well. While I understand about the overhead of too many connections outweighing the benefits of this, this issue only applies if the torrents are heavily populated. If the torrents have fewer peers available than the max number of connections per torrent (especially after discounting those blocked in ipfilter.dat - not sure if uT's seeds/peers counts include them or not), then performance suffers and time is wasted.

I don't have time to watch for torrents of interest to me all that often (I don't grab the same things regularly like TV shows and whatnot, so I haven't used the RSS feature), so when I DO go hunting for things I tend to add quite a few torrents that have very few seeders and peers left. Dynamically allocating the number of active DLs based upon recent avg. speed vs. my specified maximum would save me a lot of hassle - I currently am constantly checking on the speed and adjusting the number of active torrents accordingly. It's a real PITA.

As such I'd like to re-request a dynamic # of DLs feature with the understanding that it should only apply when there are active DLs involved that have a total peer count below the maximum peers per torrent setting (again discounting those blocked by ipfilter.dat). I think that should adequately address the connection overhead concern (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, of course - just please don't do it in a condescending manner).

Thanks!

EDIT: You'd probably have to also consider the global max connections and also maybe apply the logic only if the current DL speed is <50%-75% max (or max ever seen in the statistics (if you add that feature) - whatever you think is wise), but I'm sure you get the gist of what I am asking and will apply the appropriate choices if you deem this request a worthwhile one. Thanks again...

[Switeck]

My assumption would be that the total overhead for say, 400 connections would be negligible in the face of the amount of pieces sent.

Don't just guess. Go test that assumption.

You probably won't be doing any more damage than a leecher at absolute worst, and since it's only possible to test with large torrents anyway there's enough seeds+peers to cover for even that.

If you have a fast enough connection with low enough latency, then 400 connections at once isn't going to be a problem. But measuring the overheads is going to be very difficult -- as you'll have to find some way to subtract out the actual file transfer amounts from the total bandwidth used.

EDIT: You'd probably have to also consider the global max connections and also maybe apply the logic only if the current DL speed is <50%-75% max

What bothers me here is it looks like your main concern seems to be download speed and µTorrent needs to do more to optimize that, possibly at the expense of upload speed+seeding time.

Wanting to connect to as many seeds+peers as the torrent has (minus of course those found in ipfilter.dat) also seems an equally disasterous goal for µTorrent to have. Firewalled seeds/peers have to contact YOU to make a connection, and then can only do so if you're not firewalled. Since you have no control over when or IF they try to connect to you, µTorrent would be left to hammer firewalled ips...since obviously they exist and it's told to keep making connections till max # is reached.

[SanctimoniousApe]

EDIT: You'd probably have to also consider the global max connections and also maybe apply the logic only if the current DL speed is <50%-75% max

What bothers me here is it looks like your main concern seems to be download speed and µTorrent needs to do more to optimize that' date=' possibly at the expense of upload speed+seeding time.

Wanting to connect to as many seeds+peers as the torrent has (minus of course those found in ipfilter.dat) also seems an equally disasterous goal for µTorrent to have. Firewalled seeds/peers have to contact YOU to make a connection, and then can only do so if you're not firewalled. Since you have no control over when or IF they try to connect to you, µTorrent would be left to hammer firewalled ips...since obviously they exist and it's told to keep making connections till max # is reached.[/quote']

If you read my entire post, then you probably wouldn't appear to be jumping to conclusions like this. I stated that I tend to have a large percentage of low-peer-count torrents loaded. I regularly only get partial DLs before the last seed disappears on some of them. I am merely hoping to minimize this.

At my DSL speeds I generally can have a max of up to roughly 60kbps coming in (although I usually limit it to about 40-45kbps to allow my spouse to surf comfortably), but when a torrent only has 5-20 peers I often find my peers are apparently only capable of sending me as little as 2-10kbps. Thus I open additional DL slots rather than risk missing out on the other low-peer-count torrents by waiting for the first one to finish (obviously I try to prioritize the lower peer counts), but I don't usually go more than 3x over the uTorrent Speed Guide's recommended 1 DL at a time because it seems to me that the drawbacks begin to outweigh the benefits. Overall in these situations my DL speeds still rarely exceed ~25kbps even with me constantly checking on and tweaking the number of active DLs. Before it is assumed that I am merely a leecher, know that my UL speed is capped at uT's recommended 17kbps and uT is often sending faster than I am receiving under these circumstances - my ratio often well exceeds 1:1 by the time these torrents are done DLing.

I did not request "hammering" - I requested activating additional torrents until we get up to up to maybe 50%-75% of max DL speed - a VERY different request. I understand that there may be limits to this dependant upon what may work best both for the torrents themselves and the "community" - I believe I well demonstrate this understanding by generally not going above 3 active DLs at a time. I am simply not wanting one (or two) dead slow torrents to prevent me from getting others before they disappear. If my request is unreasonable, then explain why it is so rather than ass-u-m(e)ing you know my intentions.