It would be nice to set the "Maximum Upload Speed" to the current download speed of each torrent.
I hate it when I am uploading a torrent at 15 KiB/s but only downloading it at 10 B/s.

bjlockie wrote:It would be nice to set the "Maximum Upload Speed" to the current download speed of each torrent.
I hate it when I am uploading a torrent at 15 KiB/s but only downloading it at 10 B/s.

That could be a useful feature, but sometimes uploading that extra can lead to others uploading more to you, so you get a faster download speed. And even if that doesn't happen, it means that you'll have that much less time to have to seed the torrent (assuming that you intend to actually fully seed it). Of course, if you're consistently uploading more than you're downloading, then you'll have a ratio greater than 1 (ridiculously greater than 1 in your example), so that could definitely be annoying. Of course, if you're not consistently uploading more than you're downloading, then you're giving up on the opportunity to catch up on your ratio and are going to have to seed the torrent that much longer.

So, in any case, I think that it could definitely be a useful feature, but it should probably be used with caution.

Personally, I've found that while I'll definitely have torrents uploading more than they're downloading, I rarely have torrents which finish downloading with a ratio greater than 1. It does happen upon occasion (generally when a torrent is really poorly seeded), but it's quite rare. So, I'd rarely - if ever - use such a feature because it would just force me to seed torrents longer.

Maybe tie uploading to the share ratio?

bjlockie wrote:Maybe tie uploading to the share ratio?

That might actually go against the bittorrent spec since it means that you'd still be trying to download while refusing to upload anything if you ever reached a share ratio of 1.0. At the moment, you can manually limit upload speeds to as little as 1 KiB/s - which in practice is pretty much the same as saying 0 - but there's no way to ever tell ktorrent to actually not upload anything while downloading. Your first suggestion would likely be better.

Of course, the fact that download speeds and upload speeds are constantly changing means that it would actually make ktorrent do a lot of work, constantly changing the upload limit - particularly on slow-moving torrents - as the download limit changes. I don't know how bad it would really be, but it would definitely increase the amount of CPU that ktorrent uses. It also would make your upload speeds very unstable, which would probably make peers upload to you less and ultimately hurt your download speed. A moving average of sorts could be used to smooth it all out and reduce the amount of work that ktorrent would have to do, but it still would be more work for ktorrent and would still make your upload speed very unstable.

Regardless of any implementation or efficiency issues, however, I wouldn't use such a feature any more than I'd use your first suggestion. I rarely have torrents which stop downloading with a ratio greater than 1.0. Even in cases where a torrent's ratio is greater than 1.0 at some point while it's downloading, it almost always drops below 1.0 before it finishes downloading. In the rare cases that a torrent actually finishes downloading with a ratio greater than 1.0, it's an extremely slow-moving torrent with very few peers - and while I may limit the speed of the torrent's upload speed sometimes, I certainly don't want to stop it because that risks making it so that the few peers that are there will stop uploading to me.

I can understand being frustrated that a torrent is uploading more than its downloading, but that's usually just a sign that you're not managing to connect to anyone with data you don't have at the moment, and usually by the time that you've actually managed to get the all of the torrent, your ratio has dropped below 1.0. Are you finding that not to be the case? Are you actually having torrents finish with a ratio greater than 1.0 on a regular basis? If not, then I really don't think that this is something that you really need to worry about. If you are regularly having torrents finish downloading with ratios greater than 1.0, then you're in a very different situation from me and maybe one of your suggestions would help you (though I still question it since they could make peers less interested in uploading to you). I just haven't seen it happen enough to really bear worrying about. If you are seeing it enough to worry about, I'd suggest that for the time being, you simply set the upload limits for such torrents. But seriously restricting your upload rate can harm your download rate, so I'd suggest that you definitely give them more than 1 KiB/s - even on downloading torrents that really aren't downloading much of anything - or it'll likely harm your download speed.

I don't have torrents finish with a 1.0 share ratio but I worry that they will if I set my upload to unlimited.

bjlockie wrote:I don't have torrents finish with a 1.0 share ratio but I worry that they will if I set my upload to unlimited.

Well, that's quite understandable, but in my experience it rarely happens. And you can limit their upload rate right now - you just have to do it manually instead of having a way to tie it to the download rate or ratio. Maybe it would be beneficial to have such a feature, but I really don't think that you have to worry about it. If you really start to actually see it happen to you on a regular basis, then I'd worry about it. Until then, I'd just let them upload and possibly limit them if they just upload and upload without downloading much.

Personally, I tend to have a harder time getting my upload rate high enough than getting the torrent to download before I hit a ratio of 1.0.

Yeah, i see why... but this is against the bittorrent protocol, one has to be a good suvilian.

Guys, torrents exist to help people spread files over the world. Don't be so greedy. Probably you will download file slowly but someone other will get it faster. Just think what will happen when everyone will have such feature -- everyone will get files on slowest speed! I think kTorrent users will be banned on many trackers because of this feature.

Actually I have rule for uploading of downloaded anime -- I set group rule to stop seeding with ratio 3.0. So, at least 3 more people will get this file from me.

Lain_13 wrote:I think kTorrent users will be banned on many trackers because of this feature.

This might indeed happen to all of us who use KTorrent. I already know that George is against this.

The whole idea of Torrents is the more people who seed the file, the more available the file is and the faster others can download it.

A leeching Torrent user may often choose to leave the swarm as soon as they have a complete copy of the file they are downloading, freeing up their upstream bandwidth for other uses. If enough leeching users follow this pattern, torrent swarms gradually die out. Also many people are on asymmetrical connections (meaning they have a faster download speed than upload speed). It takes many slower seeders or peers sending data upstream to make up one faster download for someone else (possibly yourself).

The _bare minimum_ ratio you should seed to is 1.0. But if you actually want to contribute to the community that you are reaping the benefits of free fast files from then you should seed to 1.5 or 2.0. depending on the health of the torrent. That is proper etiquette and anything less is being greedy.

I set my ratio limit to 2.0 for everything and if it takes me a couple more days or a month or more to reach it, then so be it. My seeding list is just a little longer sometimes. It is my way of helping the free flow of information over the Internet.