Speed limiter not quite working right.

[trinode]

Using 0.31.2

It can't seem to cope with limiting the speed, the speed is always above what it's set to, for example right now In the status bar it says 250 kB/s and 387.5KB/s normally the second number should be the same as or below the first....

I think it's the number of connections (50), if I set it to 10 connections it hovers between 240 and 260 kb

Any Ideas?

Thanks,

- Anthony

[trinode]

Err, forgot to say :-

Win 7 64bit
hardware firewall

[tf]

50 connections!? Uhm, what kinda connection do you have, since you need 50 to max it out? On a 200Mbit I needed 12-15 (Astraweb).

Perhaps alt.binz have trouble keeping it low with so many concurrent connections?

[trinode]

that's what I'm thinking, it's still a bug though especially that it can't limit 10

[EyeBaller]

that's what I'm thinking, it's still a bug though especially that it can't limit 10

The bug is you using 50 connections! Why?? You should use the minimum number of connections to max your bandwidth. Speed limiter is never going to be perfect but +/- 5-10% IME.

[trinode]

if I set it to 250kb / 20 connections in the last free version it worked great, this version is still failing at only 10 connections. FYI I connect to 3 different usenet suppliers to ensure I get all the parts I need (the stuff I need is quite old, near the retention limit of most providers).

[Hecks]

Works fine here with new version & 20 connections, so I can't reproduce.  An unreproducible bug is unfixable - so the more info you have the better.

These days there should no reason at all to need multiple servers to get old articles.  "Most providers"?  Astraweb $11/month for 455 days unlimited, only Giganews can go better, Silver is $12.99/month.

[trinode]

Ok, hmm, I'm not sure what to do...

Can I make a feature suggestion:-

"Dynamic connections":
You set the max connection count allowed to the server and the max speed of your connection and:

If there's a set speed limit (not unlimited) and it keeps going over it, it used one less connection, and again if it keeps going over, it drops another connection etc...

If it's not downloading at either the max speed, or the set limit, connect another connection (until the max connection count is reached).

That way it's a self optimising solution

- Anthony

[Hecks]

The first option would work to a certain extent, but the second wouldn't as there isn't a simple correlation between number of connections and download speed. Yes, I know it's counter-intuitve, but sometimes increasing connections *lowers* download speed - it's all dependent on your ISP, routing, overhead, etc.  There tends to be an ideal number for each user - minimum number of connections to get maximum speed - and this won't actually vary much in practice.

And this is a proposed solution to a problem that has not yet been determined to be widespread for Alt.Binz users ...

[trinode]

That's not a solution to the problem, it's a general feature request, people such as me use all the connections our provider supplies, perhaps in ignorance, or being too lazy to keep trying different numbers of connections, or because sometimes we want to download at different speeds, and changing the connections manually is a PITA inolving setting the preference, and disconnecting / reconnecting, and there's no way to schedule changes to the connection count as there is with the speed limit.

Maybe a possibility to set a number of connections per speed limit? (if the former suggestion was too complex)

So maybe I could set:

Unlimited: 20 conns
90%: 20 Conns
80%: 20 Conns
70%: 15 Conns
60%: 15 Conns
50%: 15 Conns
40%: 10 Conns
30%: 10 Conns
20%: 10 Conns
10%: 5 Conns


- Anthony

[Hecks]

Again, you assume two things:

1) That there's a direct (step-change) correlation between number of connections and download speed.  There isn't.

2) That the speed limiter doesn't work. It does. What your problem with it is, we're yet to find out.

It's easy to find your min/max.  Start with 3 in your Setup, Connect, then in connection panel (press F9) right-click and choose 'Add Thread'.  Keep on doing this until your max is reached, then use that number of threads in Setup.  Make sure to set properly max dl speed in Setup -> Connection.  Then try speed limiter.

[trinode]

My problem is this:

If I don't use enough connections, my downloads are slow when on unlimited, and when I do use enough to download at unlimited, I get this at 10%

[Hecks]

Is this with or without the unnecessary 50 connections? If so, maybe you've hit a floor for speeds per thread (8KB/s?), and you've had your solution: find the min/max first, then set the limiter.  There's no way that it needs to be 50.

[trinode]

It's with about 30 connections, my ISP seems to throttle each connection, but enough connections and I can max the DL speed. I do have scheduler as they have a download restriction during the day (6GB) and no limit at night.