Torrents

[Fire2box]

I talked about torrenting games once here and was pretty much told off for it and yet this topic still hasn't had anyone say "Hey wait a second we don't want you to talk about this stuff here!"

Also Spore, CoD4, Mass Effect and Assassins Creed are all cool.

[Connor92]

Originally Posted by UltimateZero

I used to use torrents in the past, but because of recent events in the news and lawsuits surrounding the use of torrents, I don't really use them anymore.

Anyways, torrents' download speeds are regulated by many factors:

1. The number of Seeders - People with the complete files that they keep online to share with others.

2. Number of Leechers - People who are downloading the files, but do not have the complete files to be counted as a seeder yet.

3. Your bandwidth speed - Both Uploading and Downloading Speed. The faster your internet connection, the faster the speeds of both.

4. Active Programs on your computer - The more things that you have open on your computer, the longer the download will take.

Whenever you download the torrent, download one with a high seed count. Also, I recommend downloading the torrents at night while you are asleep, that way your usual computer activity won't interfere with the speed/time it takes to download the files. I would also recommend something other than bittorrent as your downloading client. The ones that I have heard most people use are either utorrent or azureus. One last thing, for the sake of others downloading the files, please wait a while before you remove the torrent from the downloading client. Even if there is a high seed count, the more people with the files, the faster others' download speeds will be. Just be courteous. Others were kind enough to seed for you, so you should reciprocate (at least until your download to upload ratio it 1:1)

Yea, he got it pretty much right on the head. I torrent quite alot, and it really is, how good the seeders are. And once you download something, its 'proper' and 'courteous' to seed for a day or so. Kinda ironic considering you stealing...

[andysetra]

I've always found Azureus to be bloated and bulky. Why use a java based torrent program when on windows? utorrent is amazingly quick, lightweight, and has a ton of features. I've been experimenting with RSS feeds (eztv has a good one). It will automatically download the new episodes of my shows when they're out! So cool

Anything over 50 seeders for new shows, or over 5 seeders for not-so-new stuff, and you should be fine Make sure the port that Azureus/utorrent is requesting has been opened on your router (TCP packet). Also make sure to limit your upload- TCP/IP (the protocol the internet uses) has an issue where if you saturate your upload (max out your upload speed) it will cause your download speed to suffer. Set it at around half of what your max upload will go to.

[chevre]

Personally I use ktorrent for all my torrenting needs. But yeah, it's going to have to do with the seeds. If it's taking a really long time, you may have found a torrent where the whole torrent is not available (that is, there are chunks of the file which no peer has). This means that your download can't proceed until someone who does have it joins the torrent.

[Mr Alex]

Vuze works fine for me, You guys are all just too complainy.

[kite]

try this out: SpeedGuide.net :: TCP Optimizer / Downloads
it helped me out today.