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Fast Connection Settings Guide


antd

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I've read the stickied speed guide.

What strikes me is that actual values or examples aren't given to people with fast connections. People like me with 1MB/s up and down can never find guides that tell us what settings to use. In fact, the stickied guide did try and suggest figures for high bandwidth users =).

My upload speed is 1MB/s and my download speed is 1MB/s.

Can somebody please suggest the settings that I should use?

Thank you =D

Edit: I am concerned because of the torrent I'm currently downloading:

Uploaded: 10GB (That is no typo, I've uploaded 10GB in 20hours)

Downloaded: 2GB

This hardly seems fair? I'm contributing 1/3 of the total speed of the torrent itself.

Ok, there is only 1 seed and 13 peers but that doesnt mean I have to download at a tiny 30-60KB/s.

Another question, does bittorrent like fast downloaders? I know it likes fast uploaders.

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My upload and download max speed is the same. However I'm not sure if it's full/half duplex, so I don't know if I can get max speeds on both (UL and DL) at the same time.

Edit: Sorry mangz, this client is simply too slow. I gave it 10mins to get a good speed, I got 10KB/s. I put it in another client, I get triple the speed in less than 2 mins.

I'm sure this client is good, however I will not use it. Thanks to all that replied ;)

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antd, please specify your connection speed in full: Mbits/s or Mbytes/s. In short: b is bits, B is bytes, k is kilo, M is mega.

One temporary solution is to limit your upload speed to the current download speed. Increase it again when download speed picks up. Another is to reduce connections per torrent to less than the total peers in the swarm as well as reduce upload slots to 1-2.

ML

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Face it, Firon. uTorrent just isn't the fastest ramper up in the world. Especially if he happens to be using BitComet as a competitor ... given his experience, there is a good chance that he happens to be in a swarm with lots of BCers, which won't improve matters when he uses uTorrent.

On the same night I got 600KB/s (my max), I started the torrent up for 20 minutes without any flow, ran up BC0.61 which gave me about 500KB/s within 5 minutes, took down the IPs of the two biggest uploaders I see, stopped the torrent (note that now I have a pool of data to trade) and transferred it to uTorrent. I was ignored for something like an hour after that. Then the flood started.

But then, even without BCers, BitTorrent is a socialist scheme. Fast uploaders like you tend to lose out in comparison to a bunch of people who upload at less than 6KB/s and complain over uTorrent limiting them to 6*upload (30KB/s). People that catch on to this soon try to download multiple torrents at once.

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antd, please specify your connection speed in full: Mbits/s or Mbytes/s. In short: b is bits, B is bytes, k is kilo, M is mega.

One temporary solution is to limit your upload speed to the current download speed. Increase it again when download speed picks up. Another is to reduce connections per torrent to less than the total peers in the swarm as well as reduce upload slots to 1-2.

ML

My connection speed:- The fact is I do not know... As I use a socks5 server to use torrents. All I do know, is that I can download and upload at 1.3MB/s on HTTP downloads.

The fastest I have gone on BitTorrent is 500KB/s (using this client) ;)

http://img141.imageshack.us/my.php?image=utorrent8vh.jpg

I am using the client on a university LAN connection which blocks all connections not inside the university LAN. However, I have found a server which gives me access to the outside world :)

Thanks everyone for your reply.

Hmm... It seems I misjudged this client after all. It just takes a while to get going. My other client was BitTornado btw.

However, I am nowhere near maxing out, even on very large seeded torrents =( I was not using the beta version though.

Edit:

One temporary solution is to limit your upload speed to the current download speed. Increase it again when download speed picks up. Another is to reduce connections per torrent to less than the total peers in the swarm as well as reduce upload slots to 1-2.

Can you word this differently please, I don't understand.

Torrent currently downloading:

Peers: 380

Seeds: 41

Size: 8GB

Download speed: 113kB/s

Upload speed: 440-540kB/s

I'm only connected to 7 peers and 60 seeds

Is this what I should expect from the client?

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u know... I become particulary irritated when I see peopl complaining about having an average 100KB/s Dw rate...

THAT'S LIKE, SUPER-HYPER-FAST comparing to my CRAPPY 1~2KB/s!!!

someday you'll be complaining cuz u can't get your 10Gb torrent complete in 24h!

I have to let my PC on all day and night for a couple of day's to download a lazy 200MB!

please respect those who are in MUCH worse condition

(don't mean to offend anyone... it's just that I myself feel offended...)

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Firon: yes, when i edited my post i forgot to mention that i started using beta version. I've used the patches however the person whom sent me the patch said to put the values to the MAX... something like 1xxxxxx9...so thats what i did. (im talking about lvlLords patch). Do you suggest I change the value again?

Edit:-

Dark_Messiah: This topic isn't for you then. 400KB/s is crawling for me, I can't help that.

Firon:

Well, try capping your upload and find what gives you the best download speed

Hmm... It isn't that my upload is being totally leeched. My average upload speed is 200-400KB/s on this torrent, my max is 1MB/s. So, capping it wont make a difference to my download speed? If anything it would decrease?

raise net.max_halfopen and bt.connect_speed (to no higher than 70)

I raised them both to '60'. What will this achieve?

Thanks for your info.

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Well, you said you were on a uni LAN, so isn't it possible that the entire 1 MB/s upload isn't available to you? It may help to play with the upload cap and see if any value actually helps. And go ahead and use the Speed Guide and choose the 10mbit option from the list. (before you start playing with the cap)

And those will help the client ramp up faster (well, at least connect faster).

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Edit:-

Dark_Messiah: This topic isn't for you then. 400KB/s is crawling for me, I can't help that.

that's the point! why is it that everyone seems to have a much faster speed rate than me? everywhere I go to search for help I see peopl asking how they can get more than 120~150KB/s!

Is my connection problematic? what do they all have that I don't????

:(:(:(

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Today is a good day!! =)

For the first time I got acceptable speeds. Take a look:

newbitmapimage0er.th.jpg

If you can't see it:

Download Speed: 555KB/s --It actually maintained 500KB/s =)

Upload Speed: 100KB/s --No more than 100KB/s... interesting...

However, this torrent had the best seed/peer ration on the website, and I only got half my bandwidth =/

Please thumbnail big images.

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antd, crash course in how BitTorrent works.

First, some functions that are required for BitTorrent to work.

peer.disconnect_inactive true/false

peer.disconnect_inactive_interval 300 seconds minimum

This function is essential to allow the next function to do its magic. You can turn it off or increase it but you cannot reduce it to below 300 seconds. I recommend increasing it proportionately to the number of connections while taking into account the next function below.

Optimistic unchoke. This function will unchoke one peer at random every few seconds and choke the slowest active upload. It runs on a 10s minimum interval and can normally go up to 30 seconds. This function is essential for good performance so you cannot change it or turn it off.

Connections, upload slots, upload bandwidth, bandwidth distribution.

The normal connection scheme is to have many more connections than active upload slots. For example, 50 connections and 10 upload slots. This type of scheme serves three purposes: It gives a better chance at connecting to peers that have what you want and that want what you have, it distributes what you have to a large number of peers,

And,

Having a limited number of active upload slots allows BitTorrent to work best because upload bandwidth is limited in practice and because there's a minimum speed threshold before it becomes very inefficient to transfer data over a single connection. This threshold is related to the maximum TCP packet size and other TCP functions. There's another threshold within BitTorrent related to block size (normally 16kB) combined with the optimistic unchoke interval (10 seconds minimum). If the connection cannot transfer a complete block in 10 seconds and this connection is the slowest active upload once a connection gets optimistically unchoked, there's a chance the transfer will be cancelled and that will cause waste.

Upload bandwidth determines how many connections to make and how many upload slots to set. The number of connections and upload slots combined with the unchoke interval determine how to set the peer.disconnect_inactive_interval.

Distributing your upload to a limited number of upload slots is not enough, you must also ensure that you can unchoke inactive connections before they are disconnected. Some people think that to play nice, all you need to know is (UL / slots), that's not true. Since you are connected to many more peers than you have upload slots and every once in a while you unchoke one peer at random, you effectively distribute your upload to all connections, not just the active upload slots. So the complete equation to play nice is ((UL / connections) over time).

Having too many connections means that you have more connections than you are able to unchoke in (peer.disconnect_inactive_interval - (upload slots * optimistic unchoke interval)). It also means that you'll be disconnecting/reconnecting many peers in a short time. That's a waste of bandwidth and time. Another BitTorrent function causes frequent disconnects/reconnects to disrupt normal torrent performance, I'll get to that.

Let's take the first example. 50 connections and 10 upload slots. Let's see if I can unchoke every peer before the interval runs out.

(50 connections * 10 seconds) - (10 upload slots * 10 seconds) = 400 seconds. I can't get to every peer in 300 seconds but there's a chance that I don't need to if I'm also connected to 10 seeds: I don't need to unchoke seeds. In that case, the equation is ((50 connections - 10 seeds) * 10 seconds) - (10 upload slots * 10 seconds) = 300 seconds. I can do it now.

Anyways, just to be on the safe side, I set the interval to 600 seconds.

Here are three schemes I use depending on the circumstances. My connection is cable 6.5Mbit/900kbit.

Leeching.

When a torrent is way fast with more seeds than peers, I normally make a huge number of connections to take advantage of my download capacity. I also cap my upload to less than 30kB/s because it affects my download too much otherwise. I set 2-3 upload slots so that I upload to each at a fair speed anyway. When I'm done, I go in seeding mode.

TFT (tit-for-tat).

When a torrent is not so fast, I make a reasonable number of connections (40-65) to distribute my upload fairly over few connections. Sometimes I limit my upload to the current download if it's lower than 80kB/s and when speed picks up above about 150kB/s, I cap my upload back down to 65kB/s because that's the max I can do while keeping a good download speed.

Seeding.

At this point, I don't need to download from multiple peers and I can play even nicer than when I download so I normally set 15-25 connections and uncap my upload to 100kB/s because that's the max I can do and I want to reach my share ratio as quickly as possible.

In both TFT and seeding mode, I set 10 upload slots so I give a minimum of 6.5kB/s per upload slot for good performance. I can normally get over 175kB/s with just 40 connections on a good torrent. If I want 750kB/s on a very fast torrent, I make as many as 500 connections unless I'm really lucky and find a huge pipe. Making a huge number of connections on a slow torrent will not make it faster, it will make it even slower.

The great majority of people make too many connections for their upload speed and the number of upload slots. One function of BitTorrent gives three times as much chance at getting optimistically unchoked on a new connection. Too many connections, too many timeouts and disconnects, too many new connections get optimistically unchoked, current connections get deglected and become inactive uselessly. Round and round. Combine this with the fact that too many connections means that upload bandwidth is spread too thin and the result is a slow torrent. Contrary to what you may believe, the solution to a slow torrent is not to make a huge number of connections. In fact, the solution is to make fewer connections to increase the torrent's overall speed. If too many connections make a torrent slow, fewer connections make it faster. If it remains slow, just cap your upload.

antd, in your case, you have a high upload capacity while most other people have 30-100kB/s. You can set as many upload slots to match the majority of other peers' speed per slot or you can cap your upload speed to the torrent's current download speed. In both cases, make a reasonable number of connections and increase the inactive/disconnect interval enough to allow you to get to every peer you are connected to before the interval runs out.

You mentioned two torrents so I'll use that as examples. You did not mention how many upload slots you normally set so I don't know how you normally distribute your upload. This is an important factor in performance because it allows distributing your upload bandwidth proportionately to other peers' bandwidth distribution.

Torrent #1

1 seed, 13 peers, 30-60kB/s

Solution is: Cap your upload to 100kB/s max and, make at least 13 upload slots to increase the chance that you'll TFT with every peer.

Torrent #2

Peers: 380

Seeds: 41

Size: 8GB

Download speed: 113kB/s

Upload speed: 440-540kB/s

I'm only connected to 7 peers and 60 seeds (I'm sure that's a typo so I'll assume you mean 7 seeds/60 peers)

Solution is: Cap upload to 113kB/s or just about, set 10 upload slots, inactive/disconnect interval 600, 70-100 connections. Or, set many more upload slots to distribute your 440-540kB/s in the same fashion all other peers distribute their upload per slot.

One peer with 30kB/s upload capacity could give each upload slot 5kB/s. You could distribute your upload to give 5kB/s per upload slot as well, just connect to many more peers than they can and set many more upload slots than they can to get as much as you give.

It's not how fast you can upload but how you distribute your upload.

ML

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Very informative. I do believe this is where I am going wrong (upload distro.)

My settings are the default xx/10mbit. 25 upload slots? I think. I've used this setting on every type of scenario you have said, and I think this is why I am getting slow speeds?.

I have some questions and comments:

you must also ensure that you can unchoke inactive connections before they are disconnected

How?

Leeching.

When a torrent is way fast with more seeds than peers, I normally make a huge number of connections to take advantage of my download capacity. I also cap my upload to less than 30kB/s because it affects my download too much otherwise. I set 2-3 upload slots so that I upload to each at a fair speed anyway. When I'm done, I go in seeding mode.

So... when a torrent has, for example, 100 seeds/20peers, I should change my total connections to a very high value.... such as?

TFT (tit-for-tat).

When a torrent is not so fast, I make a reasonable number of connections (40-65) to distribute my upload fairly over few connections

On a not so fast torrent I should limit my number of connections? Is there a 'rule of thumb' number that I can calculate... For example, from the number of seeds/peers?

You can set as many upload slots to match the majority of other peers' speed per slot

"of other peers' speed per slot" -How do I find this value? I dont understand =/

increase the inactive/disconnect interval enough to allow you to get to every peer you are connected to before the interval runs out

Which setting? How can I calculate which value to set it to?

(I'm sure that's a typo so I'll assume you mean 7 seeds/60 peers)

It wasn't a typo.

antd: you sure you pressed Ctrl G and chose the xx/10Mbit option from the list?

Yep, did that =)

Many thanks for your posts people. You truly make the client ;)

If you could answer my questions that would be very much helpful. I will try and change some of the things I understood and will report my findings.

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You can try lowering your upload slots to 15 or 20 and see if that works for you. And the number of connections you have now is fine.

Try raising peer.disconnect_inactive_interval to 600 or so and see if you get better results. (it's in Advanced Options) You may need to set a lower upload cap.

In reality, you shouldn't expect to get full speed very often, since your bandwidth is limited by the bandwidth of everyone else (and there's also other downloaders than you)

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