Maximizing uTorrent Download Speed (Guide / Tutorial) Beta

This article explains how to get up and running with utorrent Bit Torrent efficiently. It shows how to battle ISP's throttling bittorrent speed, optimize download speed and other ways to speed up utorrent and increase utorrent download speed.

Introduction

This is a tutorial step by step guide on how to speed up uTorrent's configuration. It details all the steps from downloading to optimizing your utorrent and Windows settings. Many people have used and think they are running with optimized settings, even then, it is advised to read through this guide and see what you may have missed to get the best configuration settings.

Starting off with Bittorrent Client

This guide will focus on the top most client, uTorrent. A quick rundown of its major features and we're talking SPEED here

1. Peer Exchange

Obtain more peers for your downloading torrent in addition to trackers. Peer exchange checks with other peers to see if they know of any other peers. More Peers = More Speed.

2. Protocol Encryption, Half-Open Connections and uTP UDP Packet Protocol

This is the major speed booster if your Internet Service Provider (ISP) throttles BitTorrent traffic, allowing bypassing of ISP throttling. It can do wonders on torrents with high seeds and can give high speeds especially if your peers are using the top 3 clients I mentioned above, as those are the popular ones that support this standard.

A list of commonly known ISPs who throttle BitTorrent can be found here. You can even do an online test to verify if your ISP throttles BitTorrent connections.

3. Capping Upload Speed

Uploading data to other peers at full throttle will severely limit your download rate. This is one key element we have to adjust for a good download / upload ratio. Unless you are purely seeding and not using your computer for other tasks, limit your upload to 80% of full bandwidth.

4.Distributed Hash Table (DHT)

Similar to Peer Exchange, it also obtains more peers for you to download from. If the tracker is down, and the torrent is not private, you can depend on DHT to continue downloading!

5.Local Peer Discovery

Searches for peers with the same Internet Service Provider (ISP) as you. Connecting to a peer in the same network (or ISP) means you can get the maximum speeds from that peer, assuming he is generous with his uploads.

What We Need

1.An Internet Connection and its maximum download and upload speed. If you are not sure of your download/upload speeds, visit http://www.speedtest.net/ to run a speed test. Select a download location closest to you, especially if you are outside US. The Recommended Server (golden pyramid) works out most of the time.

2.Patched TCPIP.sys to allow more concurrent half-open connections. Windows XP SP2 and Vista limits the number of half-open connections to 10.

To increase the limit, there are freely available patcher:

Half-Open Patch - For Windows VISTA / Windows XP /
This patcher works for both 32 and 64 bit Vista and XP versions.

1. Go to this site - http://half-open.com/download_en.htm.
2. Download the ZIP file in the link titled Half-open limit fix 3.6 (as of Feb 2009)
3. Extract all files to one folder in your desktop
4. Open the folder and run the Half-open_limit_fix_3.6.exe file
5. Click English
6. Under 'New value', set it to 100 (if it is not already set)
7. Click 'Add
8. Click OK.
9. Click OK again. Cancel any Windows XP warnings that should appear, it is part of Microsoft's way of ensuring its files are not tampered with (the utility tampers with them on purpose to change the limit).
10. Restart your computer.
11. If something is not working right (e.g. Internet access does not work anymore) and you want to undo the changes, run the software again and click "Restore original file".to tcpip.sys'

NOTE: The patchers above are known to trigger anti-virus alerts sometime. Ignore them. The alerts are triggered due to the patcher making changes to the way Windows works hence the anti-virus software interprets it as suspicious.

Enabling Protocol Encryption, uTP (UDP Packets) and Increasing Speed Via Max Half Open Connections

uTorrent by default disables protocol encryption. We need to enable this so that the ISP's packet shaping hardware will detect our BitTorrent traffic as normal traffic and hopefully let it pass.

1. Click on Options, Preferences.
2. Click on BitTorrent.
3. The one we are concerned about is Protocol Encryption. Set the Outgoing to Enabled.
4. Click on Advanced on the left column.
5. If you did NOT patch your TCPIP.sys to allow more concurrent half-open connections above, SKIP this step.

Change "net.max_halfopen" value to 50 by selecting the line, modifying the value at the bottom to 50 and clicking Set.

NOTE: It is normal for a asterisk(*) to appear. This is to indicate that the value has been changed from the default value.

From uTorrent version 1.8.3 onwards, a new UDP protocol named uTP was introduced which sends UDP packets as well as TCP packets. The main benefit is that it provides a new avenue of bypassing ISP throttling limits resulting in a more efficient torrent swarm.

1. At the same Advanced screen, Change "bt.transp_disposition" value to 255 by selecting the line, modifying the value at the bottom to 255 and clicking Set.
2. Click OK. Stop all torrents (red stop button on toolbar on top), wait 10 seconds, and Start the torrent (green play button on toolbar). Now let's watch the speeds.

Hopefully, the above changes will improve speeds. Ultimately, it depends on the number of seeders and peers with high upload rate. Remember, you must upload to enjoy good download rates, but not so high that it affects download speed.