In some cases, downloading a movie only takes me between 5-20 minutes. In the worst cases, which may I add are the most common, it takes me the best part of 24 hours to download a movie. I don't know why this is. I have been fiddling around with my bandwidth, increasing and decreasing the incoming and outgoing. My internet is running at 37Mbps, and my download speed is 1.8Mbps. I am a fiber optic internet user and in all fairness my internet speed is rapid in general but when it comes to downloading movies it just takes too long! My laptop is running Core i5 and I am currently connect via the Ethernet cable that runs directly in to my Talk Talk modem. Surely I should be able to download movies within the 10 minute bracket? Can someone please help me configure as to why downloading movies takes so long? I am pretty new to all this peer 2 peer sharing and downloading movies so please excuse my uneducated experience! I look forward to receiving any kind of help. Thanks, Mark.

Hello Mark

It is important to understand how peer-to-peer network works. Basic idea is: there is no central server, each user acts both as a client and a server. This means, you download files from people like yourself, who use residential connections, often with limited upload bandwidth. Your download speed depends mostly on other peers' upload speed, and of course, number of torrents using that bandwidth simultaneously on each client.

Another thing: 37Mbps = 37 Mega bits per second. Tixati shows transfer speeds in Bytes, not in bits, the big "B" is a different unit than small "b". One Byte equals 8 bits, so if Tixati shows 1.8MB/s download speed, that is 1.8 * 8 = 14,4 Mbps. In other words, your maximum download speed, in units used by Tixati, is about 4.6MB/s.

37Mbps is your download bandwidth, but most likely your upload bandwidth is much less than that. For example I'm on 40Mbps VDSL connection (which is advertised as "fiber" for some reason), but my upload is limited to 4Mbps (about 500 kilo B/s). Almost everyone else using bittorrent is in the same situation, so again, other peers' upload bandwidth is limiting my download speed. Additionally, most bittorrent clients try to share more data with peers that give back more data, so my 4Mbps upload may actually limit my download speed.

Regarding your settings, Tixati has very good defaults, in most cases these settings are fine and changing them won't give you better speed (I'd recommend to use IPv4 only though). If you'd like to be sure that you are downloading as fast as possible in your situation, read carefully the Optimize Tixati help guide. Set your Tixati and router properly, so that you will be able to share with all peers available, not just some of them, and be sure to set correct download and upload bandwidth limits. Upload limit is very important, unlimited upload often will choke your download speed! It's all described in detail in Optimize section.

Sorry if some of above is obvious to you, and sorry for my terrible grammar ;)

There many reasons why a movie download might be slow. I suggest you pause your download and start downloading another movie torrent which is very popular and you know it has a high download rate. If the other movie is downloading okay, then the problem is with the torrent. If you cannot find a torrent which downloads okay but you can download normal files with your browser, then the problem is with your Bittorrent client setup or your router setup. If you cannot download anything at all, then the problem is with the internet connection. For a torrent to download fast, you must have a broadband internet connection (more than 8mbps), a properly configured router that allows port forwarding, a properly configured Bittorrent client, and the torrent must have more seeders than leeches. Hope this helps.

If it is taking you 20 minutes or so, to download a file, that is still pretty good times.

My internet speeds are 150Mbps down and 65Mbps up and it still takes me 20-30 minutes to download a 12GB+ file.  As stated above, try tweaking your settings to optimize a fair percentage of down/up speeds.

In the bandwith settings, keep your download speeds set to max.  Figure out your upload speeds using a speed test website.  Then calculate 5-10% of that posted speed and set that as your upload speed.  It will allow you to download and still upload data at a fair rate.  Hope this helps.

damn man...65Mbps up ??
I thought I was doing great with just 1Mbps upload..


Aside from your amazing BW capacity, it really has little to do with how fast you can download a file.

If the seed is on a 14.4k dialup.. guess what your max download speed will be?

I think that you have slow pc or you don't have to clean your pc history or cookies etc which makes the system dull. clean your system and then check your internet speed on speed test it may be your internet have the better downloading and uploading speed. Thanks

browser history and cookies have no impact on torrents
dwnoload speed is usually affected more by external factors, other users' resources than your own if you have your serttings right.

Every torrent is different, it really depends on the peers you're connected to. I'd recommend restoring the settings to default and then going through the steps at http://www.tixati.com/optimize/.

Take note of how many Seeds and Peers the torrent has when you download it. More Seeds is quicker, and a low ratio of seeds to peers will be slower.

>>>it takes me the best part of 24 hours to download a movie

You actually think that's a long time?  Sometimes it takes months for me to download rare items.  Some cases it takes years.

It takes me between 5-24+ hours to download a 3GB movie on Tixati, yet on my parent's laptop (a similar 64bit Acer) it takes about 5-10 minutes. We live in the same area, have the same ISP, and have similar Mpbs speeds. There must be a simple answer to this!!! I've gone through all the bandwidths, tried setting the outgoing to 75 and using the auto-limiter thingy, but nothing changes or improves it. Very frustrating, but it's a real joy when I use my parent's PC, though. :) Sorry I'm not helping. I'm just joining in your cry for help.

So? Many variables here: number of seeders, peers upload speed, number of people downloading, PC performance, network speed, etc.. Also, advertised ISP speed means nothing...
Many seeders don't mean much if they cap the up speed, for example to 1KBs!


Exactly.