Connecting as fast as possible on BitTorrent?

[SineSwiper]

I know that this is offtopic, but I have to ask: Why the fuck do any of these BT clients (or maybe it's just Azeurus) not try to connect to as many seeds/peers as it can? I grab an episode of Naruto a few hours after it comes out, and I get a figure like "15 (17823)" on my client.

What the hell?? There are 17 THOUSAND seeds out there, so it should be trying to connect to ALL of them. I have a 15/1.5 connection, so I can handle the bandwidth. I have to force it to grab more seeds/peers by manually selecting "Update Tracker" all the time. So, it's basically only going to connect to the IPs whenever it goes to the tracker, even though it's got a full list of IPs to run though.

The maximum my client can use is 100 connections at a time (which I set on XP's TCP/IP DLL as well). That translates into about 5-10 actual real hosts that get connected.

[Zeus]

If you ever find out, Sine, let me know. I've got it on 200 connections max myself and it never gets near that

[SineSwiper]

I'm asking on Torrent Spy's forums. If I don't get a good answer, I'll try a few other BT clients to see if they do the same thing.

[Zeus]

I'm asking on Torrent Spy's forums. If I don't get a good answer, I'll try a few other BT clients to see if they do the same thing.

I personally use Utorrent (well, Microtorrent but no one calls it that). Same protection level as Azureus without the ridiculous resource hog

[SineSwiper]

Does it have something like SafePeer?

[Kupek]

What the hell?? There are 17 THOUSAND seeds out there, so it should be trying to connect to ALL of them.

That's not a scalable policy. If everyone tried to connect to every seed, the system would grind to a halt.

[Tessian]

I use Azereus, and assuming the seed is popular enough I normally don't have issues.

I take it you have all ports open and forwarded properly that BT is asking for, yes? Because if not you can still download torrents, but just not nearly at the speed of others.

And to add to what Kupek said-- have you EVER seeded, or do you just leech like every other freeloading dick on BT? When you set up to seed, you tell your client the MAX number of peers that can connect to you at a time. You can set max speeds and everything too.

So yes, there are 17,000 seeds, but most probably are already connected to their max # of peers. The default I think it somewhere between 4-10 peers.

So in summary-- it has little to do with how many connections YOU say you can make as a downloader; but more what everyone else has set as how many can upload from them.

If you have a normal 2mb upload-- anyone bother to do the math on how little that would be if you split that between even 100 peers?

[SineSwiper]

So yes, there are 17,000 seeds, but most probably are already connected to their max # of peers. The default I think it somewhere between 4-10 peers.

Riddle me this: how come when I hit Update Tracker manually, I automatically get ten more seeds/peers?

The problem has nothing to do with my connection or theirs. It's just that I don't want to manually force the BT client to try 100 more connections. That max peer explanation might tell me why out of 100 connections only 10% of them get added, but it doesn't tell me why the client just doesn't grab more connections over and over again.

And yes, I share. There's really no way of not sharing, unless you're using some hacked client.

If you have a normal 2mb upload-- anyone bother to do the math on how little that would be if you split that between even 100 peers?

The problem is that many peers just aren't talking, some are seeds that don't need the copy, and most connections (seeds and peers) are still acting like a 56K modem. You're lucky to get 3-5kbps on one connection, and that's among the connections that are downloading.

Have you ever looked at the connection list on a torrent download? It tells a lot about how the system works. Usually if you get a big jump from 20kbps to 100kbps, it's because of -one- guy with a 80kbps upload rate.

[Kupek]

That max peer explanation might tell me why out of 100 connections only 10% of them get added, but it doesn't tell me why the client just doesn't grab more connections over and over again.

I answered this above.

[Nev]

I am sitting here watching you guys bitch about why you can't get more connections for your various pirate enterprises and laughing my ass off.

Do any of you use BitTorrent for anything other than illegally downloading stuff? I'll feel bad about your technological hurdles if you say yes...

[SineSwiper]

Fuck off. If you don't like the conversation, don't jump in. Nobody needs your holier-than-thou attitude over and over again.

I answered this above.

Not really. Everybody can't connect to everybody else, anyway. Every client has its share limits and connection limits. If everybody tried to connect to everybody else, there would only be a 10% or so mesh, depending on the types of connections and your client limits.

However, the client isn't even trying to get to that limit. It's based on a model that most connections are going to succeed, which is far from true. In a real world situation, one try to get the connections isn't enough. Instead, keep trying to connect to hosts until the active connection limit (based on client settings) is achieved.

This isn't going to crash the network, but ensure that everybody is using the maximum potential for the network, based on their bandwidth. After all, if my BT is running, and both my download and upload speeds are using only half of the connection (or at least the Mbps I set), I might has well be half a peer.

[Tessian]

It's also an issue of incorrect configuration of other peers & seeds. You're added to the list purely by connecting to the tracker... but half the seeders and most peers either have their upload limits so low it's useless or don't have the correct ports forwarded and can't connect.

I think the only point you can make is that the BT clients aren't designed to just keep on trying until they hit your max. Has to be a reason why, because there are dozens of clients and none do it as far as I know. They probably try to connect to a max at one time and that # is reached fairly quickly with the above reason.

[Don]

I'ts not clear to me if connecting to more people after a certain point actually helps because it'd seem like the overhead of coordinating connecting to all these guys catch up.

[Nev]

Fuck off. If you don't like the conversation, don't jump in. Nobody needs your holier-than-thou attitude over and over again.

I think not. Or do you not remember that I started this place and that none of us would even be having this conversation otherwise?

Not too be too much of a dick about it, but I've earned my right to throw my two cents in, and currently they have an inscription stating that you're trying to bully me out of the conversation. Therefore I'm going to call you out on it.

And really, dude, unless you've gained more social skills than you had when I chatted you up on the phone about eight years ago, I can already hear the whiny, scared voice you'd be saying these things with if we weren't on the Internet. You don't possess the power of command to tell me to fuck off, not even a little bit. Not to put you on blast, but I'm still pissed at you for posting up personal information about me months ago on here.

Debate me honestly, Sine, or don't do it, as you have little to no margin for talking shit with me. You'll get destroyed otherwise. And by the way, you still ought to answer my question.

[Nev]

Fuck off. If you don't like the conversation, don't jump in. Nobody needs your holier-than-thou attitude over and over again.

I think not. Or do you not remember that I started this place and that none of us would even be having this conversation otherwise?

Not too be too much of a dick about it, but I've earned my right to throw my two cents in, and currently they have an inscription stating that you're trying to bully me out of the conversation. Therefore I'm going to call you out on it.

And really, dude, unless you've gained more social skills than you had when I chatted you up on the phone about eight years ago, I can already hear the whiny, scared voice you'd be saying these things with if we weren't on the Internet. You don't possess the power of command to tell me to fuck off, not even a little bit. Not to put you on blast, but I'm still pissed at you for posting up personal information about me months ago on here.

Debate me honestly, Sine, or don't do it, as you have little to no margin for talking shit with me. You'll get destroyed otherwise. And by the way, you still ought to answer my question.

In other news, I really need to stop having bad days and then using them as an excuse to start flame wars. That is all. We return you to your regularly scheduled ennui.