Calculate Your Optimal BitTorrent Settings
Written by Ernesto on March 19, 2007Configuring your BitTorrent client is extremely important if you want to get the best out of BitTorrent. However, the settings pane of the average BitTorrent client might be a bit overwhelming, and some people just don’t know where to start. For novices, this BitTorrent settings calculator might come in handy.
The calculator gives some good suggestions that might improve your overall download speed. Just enter the maximum upload speed of your connection, and the calculator will give you your recommended upload speed, maximum connections per torrent, and some other settings. The calculator can be used for every torrent client.
The maximum upload speed is by far the most important setting. It might sound strange to some, but you should always cap your upload speed to reach the best download speeds. Your connection is (sort of) like a pipeline (or tube if you prefer), if you max out your upload speed the pipe will be fully used, which means there’s not enough space left for the files you are downloading. The calculator recommends to set it at 80% of your maximum, I agree with that. People with high-speed connections might go a bit higher, and set is at 85% or even 90%.
Some people find that when they are seeding, browsing the web becomes sluggish. This is due to a badly configured upload speed in their BitTorrent client. When you have the correct upload speed entered into your client, browsing the web is noticeably quicker and seeding becomes almost transparent.
How to configure your maximum upload speed?
uTorrent: options > preferences > connection
Azureus: tools > options > transfer
Bitcomet: try this ?
Here at TorrentFreak we also wrote some post about optimizing BitTorrent download speeds, might be worth the read if you want to know more.
Read more on optimizing your BitTorrent Speed.
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Actually, this only applies to lower-tech Internet connections, like those that are common in the US: DSL, Cable, etc.
For people in, say, Sweden, Japan and Korea, which have full 100-Mbit or 1-Gbit Ethernet connections straight into the home, the connection is already full-duplex, and upload is completely independent of download.
I have a 100-Mbit full duplex connection, meaning I can download and upload at 100Mbit each at the same time.
Rick
Unless you are paying a couple tens of thousands dollars a month for your internet, there is no way you are getting 100Mbit speeds. Sure you may be connected to your modem at 100Mbit speeds, but that doesnt mean your modem is connected to your ISP at 100. I suggest you do a bandwidth test on websites available on the net..
Yes , Martin if you are living in a larger city in Sweden you can get a pretty cheap 100 Mbit connection.
100/100 connections are not that unusual here in scandinavia..
I just wanted to add detail to the upload story.
Generally speaking, one’s upstream and downstream bandwidth are completely independent. However, the TCP protocol sends acknowledgment packets (ACKs) every so often allow, informing the sender you’ve received thus far and to send more. The bitorrent protocol itself creates additional overhead: communicating with the tracker, maintaining connection to peers, etc that requires additional upload.
So if you’re uploading too much, all of the overhead packets that need to be returned for bitorrent, as well as ACK packets for any TCP protocol (including http traffic) will have to wait in the que–or worse, timeout and get resent. This is why you may notice even your HTTP traffic sucks when torents are upping too much.
And this will affect even a 100Mbit connection, but you’d have to be actually saturate your upstream. It just happens to be 400x easier to saturate the 256kbit most of us in the states are stuck with.
>_
lawl at the dude that thinks America is the only place in the world with internetz, you can get a 100/100 connection in japan for about 30/month
You mean they have the internet outside of America?!
I have a 100/100 mbit fiber connection. I pay 320 SEK ($45).
But i never manage to get my torrents to d/u with more then 3 Mb/s.
lol @ #8
they rob us in north america
Martin: You’re right, I’m usually not getting 100 Mbit speeds. I typically get 60-70 Mbit/s, all day round, at the cost of 249 SEK/mo (about €30/month).
As for the “tens of thousands of dollars” claim, I think you’re right, you would have to pay tens of thousands of dollars for that kind of speed, yes. But for us who pay in Swedish Krona, Yen, or whatever currency Korea uses, it’s readily available at reasonable rates. Heck, it’s more than just “available”, 100Mbit full duplex is some sort of minimum acceptable standard in urban households today in Sweden. Some have gigabit connections.
Several industries have had a gigantic financial incentive in delaying the Internet rollout, particularly TV and telco. Ironically, these are the ones who provide low-speed internet connectivity (single digit megabits) in the US and claim it’s fast. They have to do that in order to not lose their major cash cow, TV and land line telecomms.
What the US needs is independent internet providers without previous cash flows to safeguard against new technology.
Cheers,
Rick (pirate party lead)
Martin (again): I don’t have a modem. That’s part of my point. I have a switch and a router.
Not to denigrate those 100MBs link (cuz those are some thick pipes, you lucky b@stards,) there isn’t a single European nation that has the kind of land mass the U.S. has.
I’ll admit that we’ve neglected our infrastructure, but I don’t see your ISPs rolling in to show we yanks how to do it right. I’m sure there are legal issues there (nothing is easy in telecom.) It’s no excuse, but we also developed the Internet, and we’re suffering a national “early adopter” penalty. And of course, the pre-existing tech cash cows are still mooing away.
The first non-US ISP that wants to spring for stretching fiber across the lower 48, and then offering it up at fair rates is welcome to a blow from my GF. It would only take a 100 years to recoup your investment. With medical technology, some of the original investor might still be alive to turn a profit.
Elohssa: It isn’t so much about the investment itself, as it is how large the market is that will be able to bear it.
That is, what is the population density? If you have a high enough population density, the area itself is irrelevant, as the market is large enough. If the pop density is low enough, it doesn’t matter if you’re just fibring an area as large as a city, you’re still not going to get it back.
The United States has 50% _HIGHER_ population density than Sweden, even with Alaska counted. The US has 31 people per km^2, Sweden has 20.
Followup: I reiterate my opinion that the slow rollout of Internet in the US is because of intentional holdback from industries who have a vested interest in preventing it.
We can see the same thing happening in many countries in Europe. The key reason Sweden didn’t take this road was a few hungry entrepreneurs who founded Internet-Only providers, with no telco or TV business luggage. They quickly established new norms that telco and cable simply had to follow or get the heck out of the market.
100Mbit/s=1TB/24h.
What the hell do you guys in Sweden do with all that data? You got 100 TB harddrives as well?
Amerikka needs to get its shit together and get some 100mbit connections. ;;;(((
Rick, I take your point, but we must be missing something.
If there is a profit to be made, then capitalism demands that it be made. The telcos and cable companies are positioned to dominate this new revenue stream, so why are they not taking advantage? It’s un-American. :]
More bandwidth could enhance the pre-existing services, not make them extinct. People still watch TV and listen to radio in Sweden, I assume. I know they won’t be stopping any time soon over here.
Perhaps you are correct, but I still find it hard to imagine that profit-driven companies, regardless of baggage, would outright refuse to feed a hungry market because they are already servicing a different one.
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