Bittorrent questions

[kuebaldy]

I have been searching the forums for deveral days so forgive me if the answers should have been obvious. I just want to clear up a few questions I have.
1. Desired upload speed: One of the tutorials says that 80% seems to be the sweet spot. I am confused as to 80% of what? Is it the highest dl speed I observe during the first 5 minutes or so? This one really has me scratching my head.
2. Which file to choose: For example, when selecting a file to dl what is more important? The number of seeds or peers? I have been looking for the files with the greater numbers assuming these are the ones everyone else is choosing.
3. Sometimes whay I got was not what I expected: I spent 3 days dl'ing a file I was unable play. Altough two others were averaging good speeds 90 to 100, this particular one was around 12 to 15 and the up speed was was twice that. I don't mind sharing but if I have a file that is useless to me I figure it will be the same to others so I deleted it.

Sorry if this is the same old stuff you hear over and over again but I would appreciate anyone's input.

[DigitalJunkie]

I not a BitTorrent user, but

1. Usually when they said 80% it means 80% of your total upload speed limit, so you won't be cut off from internet for other uses.
2. More seeds means more sources to download from, without them your download may not complete!
3. You are doing the right thing, I wish more people would delete those fakes once they learned it's a fake.

[thongsai]

there is little or no fake on bt.. the torrents gets deleted if its a fake.. u seem like a newb trying to play a file without proper codecs.

[ratbag]

there may not be a lot of fakes on bt there are some i have come across a couple in the last two week what there is though is a lot of messed up full cds

[CRLocky]

1: I dont' know about the 80%, which tutorial were you reading?
2: Seeders are definitely important. Seeders are the ones letting you upload, and depending on how many seeders are providing, determines how fast the dl goes. If you dl with BT, you should seed as well. And to do that, just leave your GUI window open and let the sharing continue for your peers.
3: All the files are screened, so there aren't any 'bad' files. you probably needed a codec or something.

[kuebaldy]

Thanks everyone for the input.
Yes I am a newb at file sharing and the files I was referring to, I did'nt claim it was a fake. I just said I was unable to play it so thongsi is probally right, I just did'nt know what to do with it. So the 80% is the total upload speed allowed by my isp? Anyway, thanks everyone

[Whistler]

I think ive seen that 80% number before and if i recall corectly it was: set your upload to 80% of your download

Unless your trying to keep your share ratio up at 1:1, (i.e. on a private tracker or for "moral" reasons) seeds are what you should care about mostly

There are NO fakes on bittorent... if you think its fake 99.9% of the time you just are doing something wrong as CRlocky mentioned

[ratbag]

dude there are fakes or if you like wrongly named files

[kuebaldy]

Thanks again for helping me clear up some of this techno stuff.

[Whistler]

never seen one in my life can you give me an example of where?

[Rajarius]

Jesus Christ. Quit bashing each other and just answer his questions.

1. 80% usually refers to setting BT's max UL bandwidth to 80% of your connections max UL. This can be played around with though. Hard to say if it really makes THAT much difference (no long term studies).

2. More seeds is better. Though if the number of seeds is low--say, 15 or less--and the number of peers is high, several of the peers together may have another whole copy of the file. In short, if you have 10 seeds and several peers, there may be more than 10 complete copies available.

3. The number of fakes on BT is extremely low. More than likely you are trying to play or use a file without the proper software or some such. If it's a video, make sure you have the right codecs. You may also need drive emulation software. If it is a zipped file of some sort, make sure your program can handle the file type.

[Whistler]

Bashing?! what an accusation! DAMN YOU, DAMN YOU TO HELL [/irony]

[Mels_Smileys45]

The one reason you want to throttle your upload speed is so that transfer checking will not interfere with your downloads. If your upload is saturated the files you are downloading will have trouble checking and the download will slow way down. This is why some people complain about their speeds. You gotta throttle that shit if you want to max out your download speed. No question.