How to use WinMX to best effect

[Lovepeaceguru]

That is what it is all about.  How to get the files you want as quickly as possible.  I think (?) I'm pretty proficient with WinMX.  I've built up a huge library of movies and music over the last couple of years.  But how do other people actually use WinMX?  Are the habits and routines I've got into actually of any benefit.  Maybe some of the things I do actually hinder my progress?

i run WinMX on a P4 3.4GHz with 4GB RAM and nearly 2TB of disk space.  I have an "8Mb" connection whichh actually delivers about 3Mb.  I aim to run WinMX 24/7.  I guess I achieve about six days out of each seven day week.  I use MX Monitor.

I typically carry about 100 - 200 files in my WinMX downloads folder.  I actually have several thousand incomplete WinMX download files but I archive these in categorised foldfers and dip in and out as I choose.

I run my downloads on long time outs of 240 secs and I am constantly going in to the program at every spare moment to "find sources" on five files at a time.  All files are set to find sources every 10 mins and to enter up to 100 in the queue.

I typically go in and "search for alternates" on perhaps 20 or 30 files but I wonder whetehr this clogs my bandwidth.  Is it productive?

I also spend hours "retrying" time outs scrolling through pages of queues and picking off all those red lines.  Of course I also browse other users and trade.  I cancel out freeloaders or kiddie porn users whenever I see them.

Am I doing it right?  How could I do it better?

I share this experience for the benefit of others but also in the hope that I will benefit too.

[*^*Åü§§ïëgïrl*^*]

It's difficult to say what is the best setting for any one individual using WinMx simply because of the fact we have so many varied connection types, pc setups, Routered and direct connections, dial-up v BroadBand, port issues and so on. Having said that, there's also a generalised guideline which seems to work well for most.

Your setup and way of using Mx is for the most part similar to mine - and I'm 128k dial-up with a much older and slower pc. Bandwidth is always an issue but I monitor it by referring to the bandwidth chart and throttle uploads so that 'bigger connections' like T1 and T3+ don't pull too much out of my own downloading.. and I unthrottle when I'm not actively downloading. You should be able to see where your bandwidth goes by referring to it if it's a concern for you.

I also spend hours "retrying" time outs scrolling through pages of queues and picking off all those red lines. Of course I also browse other users and trade.

I don't worry about picking off the red ones. I use 'purge users' tab to clear them in one move. I find quite often that the timed out ones and file/user not available are the same users every time. I only retry if they are the only source for the file I'm after... and a pm to them for trade is sometimes effective, unless I'm ignored by Monitor for my ascii characters or slow connection.

Downloading from multiple users for one file can often bring it in faster for you, but also depends on the speed of the connection you are downloading from. Because I'm slower I tend to run only 2 or 3 concurrent users for one file so as not to dilute my bandwidth too much. Quite often too many sources for one file will leave me 'timed out downloading' for one or two of them.

I typically go in and "search for alternates" on perhaps 20 or 30 files but I wonder whetehr this clogs my bandwidth. Is it productive?

'Search for alternates' I only use when looking for a particular user who I've been downloading from for that file or if I'm not having any luck with the file self-sourcing every 10 minutes. A bandwidth drain for many ? I don't know.. if it is I'd suspect that it would be only an issue for dial-up users and not someone with a 3mb d/l capacity.

Anyway - just a comparison for you.. Happy WinMxing.

[SamSeeSam]

Well it depends on many factors :

The type of files you download
The number of files you have shared and consequently the length of your queues
The time for which you are online
Your connection speed.

I download mostly rare files like speeches and old songs. So the number of people with those type of files is less. So it does not matter to me how much in their queue I am so long as i will be able to download from them. So I put my auto enter queue to 100. But if you are downloading some recent songs or popular ones, then it is a good idea to set your auto enter queues to lower values so that you do not clog other people's queues. Best set it around 20-30 in that case

I presume with that much space, you also have many files. So it is better that you throttle your uploads so that your downloads are faster.

https://www.winmxworld.com/scripts/bandwidth/

is the best place to find out your optimum bandwidth throttles.

Also it will help that you set a lower number of simultaneous uploads so that your queue moves faster.

Limiting the number of downloads may be a good idea also so that you do not end up on someone's ignore list because you hogged his or her queue

It is best that when you find alternates and download one of them then you delete the original file so that it does not remain and become a pain in the a**. It is best to keep not more than 250 incompletes in the winmx incompletes folder. At least when I exceed that number, Winmx crashes and I lose all my running downloads or uploads.

All this is very individual. I suggest that you experiment yourself and see the settings that suit you the best. In case of a mess, it's very easy to revert to your original settings. Pay heed to those warnings too

Hope all this blahblah is useful
Cheers

*Edit (sam) typo