|
|
|
|
|
|
Zultrax P2P was working fine but recently downloads are slow. What can I do?
|
|
|
First some explanation
Zultrax P2P is file sharing software so you download files shared by other users. The speed of your downloads is determined by several factors. How many people are sharing that file, at what Internet connections and how many people are downloading that file, the speed of your Internet connection, levels of busyness at your provider, and so on.
Speed drops and increases constantly and the more we try to optimize it the higher the variation will be. So, a sudden speed decrease isn't always an indication that something is wrong.
Another thing to take into consideration: Suppose you start 100 downloads at once. The program has no problem giving you almost instantly a very nice performance, it has many files and many sources to choose from, all search results are fresh, so all computers where the files where found are still on. The program starts to download at very high speeds, quickly finishing the first and most easy to get files. Soon a speed drop is inevitable, the most easy to get files are already completed. The program keeps on searching for new sources but that only reduces the speed drop, it doesn't take it away. This process continues while more and more of the 100 downloads are completed, at the end, speed will be zero or almost zero leaving you with very slow downloads and finally with no speed at all.
Testing Zultrax P2P
Further on we will discuss how to avoid all to drastical speed drops, first it is important to see if actually something is wrong. That we do by giving the program a very easy assignment, one we are sure of it can do at nicely high speeds. If it does that well we know nothing is wrong with the router, Internet connection, settings, interfearing other software and so on but the cause is in the conditions described above.
Cancel all your downloads, or at least leave only a few, and start a new search for something easy to get. This can for example be a search in audio with "love", "song" or "beethoven" in the keyword or in video with "adult". The program finds many results and finds them quickly. Start around a 100 of downloads from within this search and especially of those files with the most nodes.
Give the program a minute or 2. The speed you see should be nearby the top-speed the program can reach in the current configuration. Normally it is higher than the speeds you usually get, if it is lower or (almost) nothing, there is a technical problem somewhere.
Avoiding future speed drops
You got a nice speed during this test? The program is working as it should. We explained why speed drops can occur in the beginning of this text. There are a few things you can do to avoid or reduce them.
- Cancel downloads - Not all files you download will be downloaded succesfully. Some downloads keep always staying on 0% complete and others are going very slow or finally stop. Often this is an indication something is wrong with the file. It is shared only shortly because people who download it delete it again. Whatever the reason, Zultrax P2P keeps on putting efforts in downloading this file. Better is if you cancel it and try to download an alternative file. The program will never do so automatically, so you'll have to do it.
- Download recent search results - How more recent a file is found the best chance on a good performance you will have.
- Have multiple downloads - The more downloads you have running at once the better your over-all performance will be. The program takes care of optimizing your speed. If you want to download 25 files it goes faster starting all 25 of them than one by one waiting for each to finish. The number of downloads will never slow down your over all performance.
- Give the program running hours - Zultrax P2P needs to find its ways on the file sharing networks it supports, that it mainly does by exchanging information with other nodes with no central server in the middle. If the program wasn't running for a longer time that information is outdated. If you just come back from a holiday, be a bit patient and normally let the program run for at least once a week more than 2 hours non-stop. That isn't a requirement but it will help.
- Check your settings - Go to the item settings in the tools menu. For best performance we advice that you choose for "Gnutella+Zepp" in the field network and for a maximum number of connections that is given as the default for your Internet connection.
- Allow incoming connections - This is explained below.
- Consider the pro version - If you are using the free version of Zultrax P2P: With the Pro version you'll get priority (= more speed) and you support our work. Isn't that great?
Incoming and outgoing connections
On your statusbar you see the number of incoming and outgoing connections displayed.
For optimal performance there are both incoming and outgoing connections. In that case the indicator is green. If either incoming or outgoing connections are missing the indicator is yellow. In that case the program is still functioning but not optimal. If both are missing the indicator is red, Zultrax P2P doesn't have any connections with the outside world and will not find, download or share anything.
You can find more information on how to fix a problem here at the
configuration page
of the manual.
If there are at least outgoing connections and the program is still performing very poorly, check the settings. Go to the item settings in the tools menu. For best performance we advice that you choose for "Gnutella+Zepp" in the field network and for a maximum number of connections that is given as the default for your Internet connection.
|
|
|
|
|
