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"Torrent software?"

Since I'm going to be downloading the Far Cry demo tonight, I've heard one or two mentions of the ol' torrent software. I've had poor experiences with this method but I'm willing to give it another go.

Can you recommend me a good version that is both easy to use and works well. The past programs I've had have been quite pissy and retarded - download speeds of 1-2kbps - 15 max. Unacceptable.

So, what would you recommend then?

Since I'm going to be downloading the Far Cry demo tonight, I've heard one or two mentions of the ol' torrent software. I've had poor experiences with this method but I'm willing to give it another go.

Can you recommend me a good version that is both easy to use and works well. The past programs I've had have been quite pissy and retarded - download speeds of 1-2kbps - 15 max. Unacceptable.

So, what would you recommend then?

I'd also like to hear from people who have good experiances with a good .torrent software package.

I use TheShadow client: http://bt.degreez.net/

If you are only getting 1-2K then I assume that are you behind a firewall? I was getting similar download speeds before I worked out what was wrong - now I'm rarely short of the maximum my connection will allow. You need to open up or forward ports 6881-6889 for the program to work effectively. Your torrent upload speed should be set just short of whatever your connection is capable of to avoid an information traffic jam - I use 18K of a 25K connection so that web browsing isn't slowed down too much.

Download speed does still depend on the amount of bandwidth available and it tends to speed up over time. Really popular torrents tend to be less efficient that moderately popular ones for some reason.

unknown kernel wrote:
> I use TheShadow client: http://bt.degreez.net/

Think I use the same one.

Basically Bit Torrent is P2P. Speeds can be slow and speeds can be fast, just like any other P2P program. I find that the speed can be slow at the start for 20 mins then the rest can be speeding along at 110K/s.

TheShadow client is good as you can limit your upload speed so that the download speed is faster. You do need to share as well as otherwise your speed will be slow.

unknown kernel wrote:
> You need to open up or forward ports 6881-6889 for the
> program to work effectively.

How do you open up certain ports?

HálloHowArtThou wrote:
> unknown kernel wrote:
> You need to open up or forward ports 6881-6889 for the
> program to work effectively.
>
> How do you open up certain ports?

Use the software from the link in a previous post.

HálloHowArtThou wrote:
> How do you open up certain ports?

This only matters if you're behind a firewall. I've got a hardware firewall so I have to use the tool that came with it. If you've got a software firewall then it should be in the options somewhere - you need to allow incoming connections.

And you need to make sure that the ports you open on the firewall are the same ones that the bittorrent software is using - as adrian said, you do this within the client itself.

I've done all that but I'm still getting speeds of about 8-10kbs

I use the shadow client as well.

Speed can be slow for quite a while initially but once it gets warmed up its fine :)