Wonder if any of you can help, When I am d/l a file the max number of hosts I seem to connect to is 10, even if the file has 70 odd. Is this strange? I have a 2mb connection by the way.

Not strange at all. You can have a thousand sources of a file to choose from but if only ten hosts are online at the time, then those are the only hosts that are sharing said file at the moment.

Sphynx, with sincerest apologies, your response makes utter nonsense! How can the network report 253 hosts exist with the file you want, but upon downloading only 10 exist??

So you know that I know what I am talking about:
A host is a computer with the file you want.
A download is a grouping of one or more hosts sending the file.

I have spent literally months downloading off of the network, and NEVER ONCE have I *ever* seen MORE than 10 HOSTS (Not sources found; HOSTS transmitting to ME!). I find it astronomically unlikely that (after thousands of downloads of thousands of DIFFERENT files) only 10 hosts exist to download from. I have also spent years downloading from other P2P networks, using other P2P software, and have been able to download from more than ten hosts at a time (in fact, one P2P program I was using would jump into the 30's).

It gets real annoying, real fast when you have 250,000 bytes of bandwidth to use, and the 10 hosts (MAX) you get to connect to utilize less than half that. I have checked the options, and have set the "Maximum Downloads" field from 10 to 20 all the way through to 100. I even tried 1000 for kicks. All to no avail. This setting appears to adjust how many FILES may be downloaded at any given time and has NOTHING to do with the number of HOSTS per file!

Perhaps I'm just stoned, but that's my opinion.

For the record, I have a nice high speed internet connection, rated at 2.5mbps down, and 1.0mbps up (~250k/sec down, ~75k/sec up). I have it DIRECTLY connected to my machine (no router, hub, switch, hardware firewall, mouse traps, lint, milk duds, or hash browns). My ISP certainly does NOT cap me in any way, shape, or form! My ISP company name is also not relevant, nor is how much RAM and HD space I have relevant. What is relevant is my speed, and MAYBE my operating system - which is WinBlows UP (Windows XP) Pro - sp2 is installed, including many other CRITICAL updates. I also use the firewall that comes with the operating system as it does the job just as well as any other firewall on the market today, and doesn't use NEAR as much CPU as the other firewall programs do. (Damn, I hate eye-candy!!)

Anyways, like I said, that's my opinion.

Sincerly, JamRoll

http://jamroll.home.dyndns.org/

Basic free limewire gives you 8 hosts tops, Pro version gives you 10, you really cant go higher than that unless more users are on at the sametime you are. Ive been on P2P for years. I know how it works. you can have thousands of users with the same file but if they ARE NOT online at the time the max you can go in basic is 8 and in Pro 10. if you want more resources then you use Bearshare. how do you except to dl from all those hosts that are from different parts of the world and are not online at the sametime you are?

so no, its not nonsense.

Pro T3's download from 14 hosts max. 10 is for Pro T1's

Just to make it clear, there is an intentional physical limit on the number of hosts you can connect to.

__________________
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I wasnt sure what the max was so, I was close. You can get more hosts only if the hosts are online, that shouldnt be hard to understand. I have yet to download from 8 hosts, let alone 10/14 hosts. The most hosts Ive had at one time was 3! on Limewire anyway. If a million hosts had the same file but only 3 are on at the time, then 3, is all you're gonna get period. No matter what the max on the hosts are. That doesnt matter. what matters is if they are online or not to download from them. If the hosts are not active at the time, then, you can forget about downloading from them. .

right. but when there are more active hosts available, like during a large swarmed download where there can be hundreds of active hosts participating in the swarm, then the preset limits will kick in to prevent a few fast hosts muscling out the folks with smaller bandwidths. This also prevents slow bandwidths tying up the upload slots.

true, but what I cant figureout is, I have better luck with bearshare than I do on Limewire for resources/hosts. I can get maybe 5-6 hosts at a time for popular files than I can with LW. Ive used both programs for awile, even on popular files, the active hosts is very limited. 8 hosts online at the sametime is rare for me. then again, Im only downloading music.