Author Topic: Upload Bandwith on a Primary... (Read 1529 times)

Sophosaurus · « **on:** August 29, 2006, 01:33:01 am »

I'm using WinMX 3.54 beta 4 with 3.0 Patch on XP SP2 mostly connected as Primary 'cause i have it up running for weeks on a very fast and stable System connected via Broadband (1Mb/160Kb). Connecting, searches and up/downloads are working well.

Now i noticed my upload speed suffering at an average of 5 or 6 KB/s.

I slightly changed my settings to find out what happens, increased and decreased allocated bandwith, throttle, upload and download limits watching strange behaviour of network traffic. Whenever i increase my upload-limit (even setting it higher than my connection speed), WinMX uses immidiatly 100% - 5KB/s for Network Traffic ignoring all other settings.

I verified by disconnecting from network after up- und downloadings were established, which dramatically increased both, up- and downloads immidiately, so i can be sure, there is no other limit for my uploads. Reconnecting also dramatically slowed them down again.

I also wonder what is causing this traffic. Right from the start there is as much traffic as i set my upload-limit to, even when i'm connected to 4 Primaries and no secondaries.

Something's going wrong...

Maxe · « **Reply #1 on:** August 29, 2006, 02:39:50 am »

When you connect as a primary you are allocating bandwith to WinMX so other people can use your connection to do searches and such. The minimum bandwith WinMX uses for this is 7 kb/s out (your upload) and 10.5 kb/s in (your download) so all your up/download traffic will be affected by these amounts.

Sophosaurus · « **Reply #2 on:** August 29, 2006, 05:43:35 pm »

Maybe i should explain in detail.

I allocated 7 KB/s for outgoing Network Traffic and limited overall outgoing Bandwith to 14 KB/s

I expected Uploading-Speed at about 7 KB/s - i got 5 KB/s, so i wondered.
Now i increased overall outgoing Bandwidth to 16 KB/s, expecting an increase of Uploading-speed.
Uploading Speed went down to 4,5 KB/s and outgoing Network Traffic increased to 10 KB/s.
I tried increasing overall outgoing Bandwith to 18 KB/s, Download slowed down to 3 KB/s
and outgoing Network Traffic was about 12 KB/s ... and so on
When i set overall outgoing Limit to my full 20 KB/s, Network Traffic is taking it all
and all uploads and downloads go down to 0,5 KB/s.

I expected Network Traffic beeing limited by it's own settings
and Upload capacity calculated as 100% - Network-Traffic-Setting.
I got instead an average of 100% - fixed 5 KB/s until i increase overall Bandwith
exceeding my Connections Bandwith with what seems to be calculated as overall Traffic + 5 KB/s for Uploads.

Somethings wrong with that. Does anyone have a clue?

The other Question is: How comes the amount of outgoing Network Traffic is that high from first second on, when there are only 4 or 5 Primaries connected. I assume, right after connecting, there can't be much Search Queries beeing resolved on my System, while i' only be known to maybe some dozens of Primaries. I don't remember such behavior when i used WinMX one year ago.

Thx for Reading and greets.

KM · « **Reply #3 on:** August 29, 2006, 06:16:09 pm »

the problem is that you have set the limit to more than your connection can handle - if you set a limit then winmx knows how much bandwidth you have free so if it's idle it'll use it to route more searches (if you limit to 20k/s and have no uploads going as far as MX is concerned you have 20k/s of bandwidth and half of it is sitting idle so it will use more for routing traffic) - once you set the limit to more than your connection can handle your uploads will slow down due to saturation, and the response is that MX will then try using a bit more bandwidth for network traffic... basically the upload limit should be whatever you can comfortably handle, although with such limited upload bandwidth secondary is recommended over primary

and the network traffic is what is relayed through you, winmx works by sending a search to the primaries it is connected to who then send them to the primaries they are connected to and so on, as soon as you connect you start receiving those searches from the primaries you are connected to and then relaying them out to the other primaries you're connected to so that is normal behaviour

7 · « **Reply #4 on:** August 29, 2006, 06:59:07 pm »

Quote from: Sophosaurus on August 29, 2006, 05:43:35 pm

Uploading Speed went down to 4,5 KB/s and outgoing Network Traffic increased to 10 KB/s.
<snip>

The other Question is: How comes the amount of outgoing Network Traffic is that high from first second on, when there are only 4 or 5 Primaries connected. I assume, right after connecting, there can't be much Search Queries beeing resolved on my System, while i' only be known to maybe some dozens of Primaries. I don't remember such behavior when i used WinMX one year ago.

Unfortunately this is how the bandwidth limiters work when running primary, that the actual "Allocated Bandwidth" setting that sets a limit on the background primary traffic is overrode if you set the main bandwidth limiters (used to place a limit on file transfer rates). I wish it wasn't like this but it is. My only suggestion as a possible cure is to use an external bandwidth limiter like 'NetLimiter' as this will allow you to limit total transfer speeds without the need to set a global limit in the WinMX client, leaving the client's Allocated Bandwidth limiter to stick to the values you set it at.

And with regards "The other Question", as KM mentioned, the background search query processing (indicated by SPM) will be constant from the moment that you connect to another primary (P=1) as those primaries relay queries they received from other primaries to you so your client can process the queries and respond with any matches, before it further relays those queries back out to other attached primaries. Does that make sense?

Sophosaurus · « **Reply #5 on:** August 29, 2006, 09:57:48 pm »

i unterstand that, thx.

as i did not intend to limit ovarall bandwith and used the limiter only to enable the optional priority-setting for my uploads, so it wouldn't help using external limiters. but i see, i should connect as secondary due to my bandwith. thought it'd make sense for the network to run a fast and stable sytem.

does anyone have enough knowledge of winmx to patch the executable for this matter?

KM · « **Reply #6 on:** August 30, 2006, 06:29:26 am »

that is the intended way that winmx is meant to work, not a bug to patch - i was designed that way to make maximum use of available bandwidth (if you set a limit, you are telling winmx you have at least that much free bandwidth for it to use)

btw if you don't limit to less than your connection can handle you can't control bandwidth priorities (as it will always assume there is still some free bandwidth that the higher priority uploads aren't using - so will speed up the others to try and use it)