I've tried a number of other downloading programs before discovering Tixati.

Others have had DHT=800, some DHT=700 but Tixati=300

Tixati DHT Online nodes figure looks quite low to me.

Does it benefit the DHT network by keeping Tixati running when nothing is active?

Does anyone know why Tixati DHT node count is lower? Or if it even matters? Thanks

I see 750-700 known nodes while running many torrents.

Note that DHT client doesn't need to keep the list of all existing nodes (much, much bigger number). Neither it needs to connect to all known nodes simultaneously, it's just a pool of candidates. If you get peers from DHT, it's probably working as intended.

What do you mean by “nothing is active”? You don't have any active torrents? Well, maybe DHT turns off or enters background mode because it has nothing to do. Global importance of your DHT node being active is close to zero, there are countless peers turning on and off each minute anyway. Only if you intend to run 24/7 for days and weeks, you may see some increase in DHT traffic, and the only outcome of that might be that someone somewhere starting a client with old list of peers gets the results from DHT a second earlier.

Seeding torrents is how you help others. Even if the speed is slow, and you're only available once in a while, less popular torrents should be kept alive.