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war eagle

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 24, 2008
649
7
Maybe i'm just not very knowledgeable on the subject, but I downloaded a torrent from my Mac and one from my PC. Same one and the PC one downloaded in like 3 mins where as the Mac took about 10 mins.

I notice all torrents I download on my Mac go relatively slow and I was wondering if someone could tell me what the problem might be? I dont have nor want access to my PC at all times but Torrents are essential to survival lol.
 
I've noticed this too. Where XP will download at full speed, OSX seems limited to 10kbps and the speed cuts off every so often.

Everything is set up correctly and other downloads in OSX are at full speed (iPlayer and the like) so it's not a signal problem.
 
Maybe i'm just not very knowledgeable on the subject, but I downloaded a torrent from my Mac and one from my PC. Same one and the PC one downloaded in like 3 mins where as the Mac took about 10 mins.

I notice all torrents I download on my Mac go relatively slow and I was wondering if someone could tell me what the problem might be? I dont have nor want access to my PC at all times but Torrents are essential to survival lol.

You'd have to describe your setup. If you are running through a router, you may need to forward your ports (though it should cause a problem for the PC too if the ports aren't forwarded correctly). Which clients are you using?
 
You'd have to describe your setup. If you are running through a router, you may need to forward your ports (though it should cause a problem for the PC too if the ports aren't forwarded correctly). Which clients are you using?

Windows - uTorrent
MAC - Transmission

I have it all going through a router.
 
Windows - uTorrent
MAC - Transmission

I have it all going through a router.

You are going to find no matter what program you use on a Mac it will be slower that is unless you install VirtualBox or similar program on your Mac then run uTorrent in its virtual environment then you will get the same speed, crazy I know but it works perfectly doing it.
 
On heavily-seeded torrents, I have pushed close to 1.5mbps on downloads and 300kbps on uploads using Transmission and uTorrent for the Mac. Both seem to be about the same in their level of performance, though uTorrent seems to be a bit better about letting other traffic through (web browsing seems a bit snappier).
 
Transmission does run slow! :(

I have been using VUZE for the last year or two. It hasnt been to bad. But, it has a problem downloading 7GB and bigger files so i am now using Transmission. It isn't very fast and i cant use UTorrent cause i'm using a PPC.
It doesnt seem to be sticky to a 10k minimum download tho! :confused:
Off topic. But, i was moving about 30GB of HD movies from one HDD to my Large one and Transmission has decided to just stop UL and DL!
Wierd! :mad:
Sorry for the rant! First post!
 
Windows - uTorrent
MAC - Transmission

I have it all going through a router.

Are your ports forwarded correctly? I can't say that I've noticed a difference in speed, but I haven't compared much either.

I've tried transmission and utorrent, didn't like them so stayed with Vuze. I hate all the junk they added to it, but I just switch into classic view or whatever it's called. Vuze is a bit of hog though, so I tend to just leave it running overnight and turn it off during the day... not that I use it that much anymore.
 
I've had no problems with Azureus/Vuze on OS X. With decent torrents I get 5-6 Mb/s consistently, which is about what my connection maxes out as. So with Azureus I'm not having any kind of speed "restriction".
 
I think i've proved this theory even more..

When in OS X there has to be something wrong/different about torrents. I just downloaded a 900 mb torrent on the Windows 7 RC via Boot Camp and it took about 15-20 minutes.

I was on OS X downloading the exact same one for almost a day until I installed Windows 7 and I quit downloading it.

What gives? Why does it do that??
 
You haven't proven anything. I use Vuze on my Mac and I can torrent at about 300KB/s on average, peaking to well over 800KB/s. I get similar results when running Vuze on Bootcamp. Same torrent as well. (For what its worth, these were 16GB torrents)

Unless you can run the same torrent on both Windows and Mac over separate internet connections in real-time, there isn't anything you can prove as the current state of the torrent can impose a big impact on your speeds. Not to mention time of day and traffic conditions on your neighbourhood's networks.

It certainly sounds to me like you have a port forwarding problem, it is important to ensure that your ports are forwarded correctly otherwise you won't be able to communicate with all the peers in the torrent.
 
You haven't proven anything. I use Vuze on my Mac and I can torrent at about 300KB/s on average, peaking to well over 800KB/s. I get similar results when running Vuze on Bootcamp. Same torrent as well. (For what its worth, these were 16GB torrents)

Unless you can run the same torrent on both Windows and Mac over separate internet connections in real-time, there isn't anything you can prove as the current state of the torrent can impose a big impact on your speeds. Not to mention time of day and traffic conditions on your neighbourhood's networks.

It certainly sounds to me like you have a port forwarding problem, it is important to ensure that your ports are forwarded correctly otherwise you won't be able to communicate with all the peers in the torrent.

When it comes to my computer, yes I have proven that torrents download faster on Windows over OS X. All my ports are open and fine. I have no problems with nothing else but torrents on my mac.

I have attempted to download torrents at home and torrents while away at university and same result. I just recently reinstalled Windows and have a go at it.
 
I use Transmission and I can dload torrents at the same speed on OSX as on Windows.

If you are having speed issues it's not OSX's fault. :)
 
Torrents are so unpredictable that it's hard to say for certain. I have had mixed results in Mac and Winblows.
 
I use Transmission and I can dload torrents at the same speed on OSX as on Windows.

If you are having speed issues it's not OSX's fault. :)

Well maybe it's just something wrong with my mac...

I'm really not trying to debate this just noting my PERSONAL experience.. that's all..

Now I have a reason to use Windows :)
 
Gads, I really can't wait for uTorrent to go final! Transmission is simple and clean and all, but can be slow and buggy. I found Vuze to be too much of a bloated pig for my liking.
 
... Vuze FTW!
I use vuze, but I also get my torrents from a certain paid site, so I get a lot of seeders (don't forget to seed afterwards!)
 
I just compared uTorrent for Mac and uTorrent for PC on two computers side by side downloading the same 2GB file, i've allocated them the same bandwidth through my wireless n router, and the Mac is faster by about 8%.
 
I just compared uTorrent for Mac and uTorrent for PC on two computers side by side downloading the same 2GB file, i've allocated them the same bandwidth through my wireless n router, and the Mac is faster by about 8%.

That is not the same thing it needs to be the same computer to make a proper comparison. I have done it with Vuze using the OS X version is slower than running it in VirtualBox with WinXP as the client while still running OS X with uTorrent it is even faster doing it that way. In short I have ran many *nix torrent programs over the years and they all suck compared to uTorrent running on XP..
 
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