Slow Speed 1.0 vs 0.5

[andar]

Hi Folks,

I know a few people have been complaining that the download speeds of the new version have been slower than the previous 0.5 releases and I'd like to try to clear some things up. Firstly, 1.0 shipped with no sane network defaults which caused a lot of routers to choke and connections to be saturated, this has been fixed and will continue to be tweaked going forward. We will also be working towards providing the configuration wizard once more to assist in finding proper settings for their connection.

The second reason for the difference, and something I don't believe has been discussed yet, is due to a change in libtorrent between the versions we use in 0.5 and 1.0 respectively. In the 0.5 series, the upload limit was only used to limit the payload data rate and did not account for protocol overhead where as the 1.0 series includes the protocol overhead in it's upload limit throttling. There is an inherit bandwidth overhead whenever you are sending or receiving packets on the internet, generally in the form of packet headers and ACKs, and since bittorrent utilizes many connections in operation, this overhead can become somewhat significant.

Now you are probably asking, what does all this mean and what do I need to do to improve my speeds? In a nutshell, by limiting the amount of protocol traffic, you are limiting your potential payload rate. So we just need to account for protocol traffic when we set our upload limits.

Example:
User has a line connection with a downstream limit of ~1.2MiB/s, but is only able to ever see ~300Kib/s when using Deluge 1.0. User has limited his upload speed to 10KiB/s, the same as he did when using 0.5.x. User is frustrated that downloading is going slow!

What the user did not account for is that the 10KiB/s limit now applies for protocol overhead too and it's typically in the range of 3-5% of your payload rate. So if we do the math, we'll see that User is using all of his allotted upload limit to send ACKs and other protocol overhead: 10 / 300 = 3.34%. As we can see, the download speed is being limited because there is no more upstream bandwidth available.

User has now realized his mistake and set this upload limit to ~4% of his maximum download speed, in this case about 50KiB/s, and is now enjoying full download speeds once again. User is no longer frustrated. Yay.


In conclusion, the problem in 0.5 was that libtorrent would only limit based on your payload rate and this could cause higher traffic than your chosen limit -- you can be using up to 30KiB/s (unreported by Deluge) upstream when downloading at 1MiB/s!. This problem has been solved in 1.0, but requires setting the upload limit a bit higher (you were always sending this much upstream, you just didn't see it).

Please remember that Deluge still only displays payload rates, so you will not see protocol traffic reported.

I hope this was informative and helps everyone get the most out of Deluge 1.0.

[onestone]

Thanks for the explanation andar. I figured out something similar was going on and came here to report it, only to see you already explained it. IMO Deluge should be more clear about this and actively inform the user how the upload limit also limits the download rate. Showing the protocol overhead in the statusbar would also be appropriate.

[andar]

Thanks for the explanation andar. I figured out something similar was going on and came here to report it, only to see you already explained it. IMO Deluge should be more clear about this and actively inform the user how the upload limit also limits the download rate. Showing the protocol overhead in the statusbar would also be appropriate.

Yes, I have been thinking about displaying the protocol overhead in the statusbar.

[fkereki]

Couldn't an option be added, in order to provide the old behavior back? I like Deluge very much, but with its current performance, Deluge is unusable for me, and I'm back to KTorrent.

[tym]

Hello all. Not only new to linux but deluge as well. While I did try the upgrade to latest version like everyone else, way to slllllllooooooowwwwwww. I simply down graded back to the .5 version and wait till people talk about how fast the latest release is. The new version was missing way to many things. The wizzard and the test to see if port forward is correct.

While I hope things continue to improve, IMHO would be nice along with the new release the same features would be included. The wizard and the Test to see if port forward is right. Most can wait for the next version as long as all the same features are included. Not a insult just a thought. For now I will use the .5 version and with new releases it will be wait and see. Newer is not always better.

Props on the .5 deluge. This little program just smokes. Getting some killer download speeds and the speeds are staying the same. Holding at 200 kib and this download is gonna be done faster that utorrent on xp ever ran.

[FatherH]

During a Google search to see if I could find a torrent client that was faster than the one I've been using for some time now, I discovered Deluge. The review I read classified it as one of the fast and most stable clients available. I immediately went to the Deluge web site, downloaded and installed - - version 1x

I haven't seen any difference in download speed - - and now that I've read this post I realize this is because the review was based on version .5 not on 1x.

Which brings me to two quesitons:
1) Where can I download a copy of .5??

2) while waiting to do this, is there somewhere I can locate the correct settings for version 1x when using a DSL connection (all of them)??

[loki]

During a Google search to see if I could find a torrent client that was faster than the one I've been using for some time now, I discovered Deluge. The review I read classified it as one of the fast and most stable clients available. I immediately went to the Deluge web site, downloaded and installed - - version 1x

I haven't seen any difference in download speed - - and now that I've read this post I realize this is because the review was based on version .5 not on 1x.

Which brings me to two quesitons:
1) Where can I download a copy of .5??

2) while waiting to do this, is there somewhere I can locate the correct settings for version 1x when using a DSL connection (all of them)??

Most older versions of deluge can be found http://download.deluge-torrent.org/
I can't seem to find the speed settings at this time for 1.x...

[uninc]

well listen i hate to be a noob but....

i have never had this problem, and i am new to linux.

i can download fine, but i have no upload connections. ???

i have a wireless connection, and no firewall on. i want to seed, its only fair. what can i check out?

[tetris4]

Hi guys..
i had the same problem here..
I was using 0.5 so far, and although i got that error from the plugin "no incoming connections" the speeds were very very g00d!
actually, I never bothered port forwarding on my modem and router, since deluge with default settings worked like a charm..

I switched to 1.1.5 and i noticed a significant decrease of speed..i still get that no incoming connections error..
I was thinking to go back to 0.5 today..when i noticed smg strange..When closing deluge and restarting it after a few seconds,the torrents seem to get better speeds (for a while?)..Dont know if there is smg i am missing here..maybe its just my idea, but re-starting deluge for a few times seems to solve the speed problem temporarily..

What do u advise? Shall i return back to 0.5 or is there a way around it? and what about that no incoming connections error? (i tried port forwarding through my modem and router, but i still got error reports, dknow what else i can do)..0.5 was working very very fast despite this..

ps: i am using kubuntu 8.10 with KDE4.2.0, deluge 1.1.5 and i have a 8mbit download, 1mbit upload dsl line, with upload limit set at 70kbps

[Aqualung]

..when i noticed smg strange..When closing deluge and restarting it after a few seconds,the torrents seem to get better speeds (for a while?)..Dont know if there is smg i am missing here..maybe its just my idea, but re-starting deluge for a few times seems to solve the speed problem temporarily...

That's sort of my experience too, only I never just close Deluge, but reboot the headless device that runs it too. Torrents do bounce back, if only for a few hours, after which everything (gradually?) goes back to snail pace--pretty much. Tried all possible settings, to no avail. It's as if Deluge chokes the device after a while. (Running Deluge 1.1.0 on Airlive WMU-6500FS, which is a pretty thin environment; never tried Deluge 0.5 though, as it's a pain to compile it for the device in question.)