Help with Torrent

[ell46]

I've downloaded the mod Dark Times using Torrent and it's the first time I've ever done this. I Googled seeding so know roughly what that is about, but I've had the program running for what seems like hours and I'm not really sure what's going on.

 

When the download of the files is complete does it stop downloading automatically and continue to upload until that is finished then close the program Final Torrent or what?

 

With regard to seeding, do I have to leave Final Torrent open/running?

[Herculine]

Since this family of sites maintains an adamant stance against piracy, this really may not be the best place to ask such questions. Not that I'm comparing DLing a mod that way to DLing an entire game from a torrent; I'm just saying that many members are likely to be very reluctant to discuss the topic or even reveal that they have knowledge of such things.

[ell46]

I hear what you are saying, but this has nothing to do with piracy it's concerning the DLC Dark Times for Dragon Age Origins, the latest update is available as a torrent download, if the subject is so taboo perhaps they shouldn't allow Dark Times DLC to be mentioned on Nexus at all. :)

[Dark0ne]

It's fine if you specify your torrent is for legal downloads.

 

You don't need to seed after your download is completed. However torrents work on the basis of people seeding afterwards so if your ISP doesn't charge you for bandwidth try to atleast leave it seeding for a couple of days. To seed you need to leave your torrent program running in the background (I use uTorrent).

 

You can still use the file while it's seeding. It's fully downloaded.

[ell46]

Thank you, I'll leave it running then as downloading this mod from mediafire or whatever it was called takes for ever and a day, if it can helps somone else get a faster download that's good.

 

One more question if I may, how do I know when my download is finished as the download never seems to stop and it has saved in My Downloads in a folder called Incomplete, I'm totally confused at the moment and don't want to update the mod if the files are incomplete, that would really mess up my saved game, I assume :wacko:

[Vagrant0]

Thank you, I'll leave it running then as downloading this mod from mediafire or whatever it was called takes for ever and a day, if it can helps somone else get a faster download that's good.

 

One more question if I may, how do I know when my download is finished as the download never seems to stop and it has saved in My Downloads in a folder called Incomplete, I'm totally confused at the moment and don't want to update the mod if the files are incomplete, that would really mess up my saved game, I assume :wacko:

There should be some progress indicator in the torrent program as well as a listing of how much information has been uploaded/downloaded. You can double check to see if its doing anything by going to the download folder and seeing what the file size is of the incomplete files and compare it with what the complete versions should be. If the incomplete files are less than 100kb in size after running the torrent for a few days, it may be an indicator that you or your ISP is blocking the connection to the tracker or the process.

 

I'm not familiar with Mediafire's torrent program, so can't help you there.

[ell46]

Thank you, the download and uploading finished about dinner time yesterday and I got a message saying 'complete' on checking the download folder it had moved the files from the Incomplete folder to an appropriately named folder. Now I've seen how it worked I understand it was just a very long download, I hate it when programs are doing things on my PC and I don't understand what's going on especially when connected to the internet. If they use torrent for the next part of the DLC I won't panic :)

 

I do have another question if someone can tell me please, in order for other people to benefit from the 'seeding' do I have to open and leave the Torrent program running or is the upload sufficient? I would hate to think I wasn't giving anything back.

 

Also if I do have to have the program running for others to benefit, how safe is it?

Edited December 5, 2010 by ell46

[Vagrant0]

I do have another question if someone can tell me please, in order for other people to benefit from the 'seeding' do I have to open and leave the Torrent program running or is the upload sufficient? I would hate to think I wasn't giving anything back.

 

Also if I do have to have the program running for others to benefit, how safe is it?

The benefit of seeding and the safety of keeping it running can differ greatly from one torrent client to another. If you were more familiar with things, had a decent client, had bandwidth to spare, I would suggest seeding back atleast 50% would be a fair idea... But, a quick check of the torrent shows roughly 20 something seeders and about as many peers, so I wouldn't feel too bad about not seeding the file. Depending on your current client settings and how long it took to download, you might have even uploaded about as much data as you were downloading just during the time you were downloading unless you had manually throttled your upload speed. Afterall, the whole thing about using a torrent for distribution is that people are uploading at the same time as downloading so even if you don't have many dedicated seeders, data is still passed around. If the seed to peer ratio were 1:10 or less, I'd be more concerned about seeding the file.

[Dark0ne]

Ah yes, forgot to mention: remember to throttle your upload speed so it isn't uploading at 100% of your connection because it directly affects your download speed and latency. I can't tell you why it affects your download speed (someone else might) but if you can upload at 40kb/sec then I'd recommend throttling your upload to between 25kb/sec and 30kb/sec.

[ell46]

When the download finished I left the program uploading until I got a message saying it was complete, so I assume I gave back at least as much as I got. I wasn't sure if I need to keep the program running for other people wanting to download, I don't quite understand all of it yet.