How to Optimize / Increase Speeds in uTorrent

There are several options to configure in uTorrent that allow you to optimize its performance.  We’ll do our best to explain why each option should be used in order to help you get the most out of uTorrent.  What you should end up with in the end is being able to download using uTorrent to pretty much its full capability while still being able to surf the internet at a decent speed!

This is broken down into 3 sub-menus within uTorrent:

Options > Preferences > Connections

Options > Preferences > BitTorrent

Options > Preferences > Bandwith

Options > Preferences > Connections

Port used for incoming connections: you can enter any port number, however is usually best to use a number above 10000 (to avoid any conflict with other programs), we are using 63851 in our example.

Randomize port each time uTorrent starts: We recommend leaving this option unchecked if you are behind a router because if uTorrent uses a new port every time it starts you will have to forward a new port on your router every single time for uTorrent to function correctly.  ** However, if you are not using a router you should use this option for a bit of added security.

Enable UPnP port mapping: I typically leave this checked, it is not needed if you manually forward your ports through a router.

Add uTorrent to Windows Firewall exceptions: I usually leave this checked, just to be sure that there are no issues with Windows Firewall.

Options > Preferences > BitTorrent

Enable DHT Network: Definitely have this option checked, it adds you to the DHT network and allows you to access a larger network of peers to download from.

Enable DHT for new torrents: Definitely have checked, for the same reason above.

Enable local peer discovery: Definitely have checked.

Ask tracker for scrape information: This basically “scrapes” the information about the peers on a particular torrent from one or more trackers, this is handy for analysis when you’re wondering why a torrent might be performing poorly (or exceptionally well!)

Enable peer exchange: Similar to enabling DHT, definitely have checked.

Limit local peer bandwidth: Typically I leave this unchecked as I don’t see a reason to limit local peers as they would be getting/giving the speeds.

Protocol Encryption: This is a bit of a tricky area, we currently leave this option enabled which does slightly slow down your speeds, but it also helps with ISP’s that attempt to throttle your Bittorrent downloads.  We recommend leaving it on for security, but if you want to try and see if you can get better speeds without it, you should try playing with this option to see what works best with your specific ISP.

Allow incoming legacy connections: We typically have this option checked.

Options > Preferences > Bandwith

This can vary from ISP to ISP, so you need to really find out the maximum upload and download speeds for your ISP before you can really tweak this section.

We are going to use the following examples for our demonstration.

Max Upload Speed: 100 kB/s

Max Download Speed: 700 kB/s

Typically you never want to use the Maximum upload speed as there will not be enough space left for the files you are downloading.   If you don’t cap your download speed, you will have a very difficult time using the internet for any other purpose other than downloading.  You should cap your upload and download speeds, we recommend using the following formulas:

Maximum Upload Rate = 80% of your Max Upload Speed

Maximum Download Rate = 90% of your Max Download Speed

Which works out to

Upload Rate: 100 * 0.8 = 80

Download Rate: 700 * 0.9 = 630

Now that we have all of our calculations for our example we can enter them in:

Maximum upload rate: 80kB/s, leave the automatic box unchecked if you are entering a number manually.

Maximum download rate: 630kB/s

Maximum number of connections: We recommend you use usually use around 100-200 maximum connections, for this example we are using 120.

Max connected peers per torrent: we left this at the default values, 50.

Number of upload slots per torrent: we left this at the default value, 4. This is the number of peers you are simultaneously uploading to.

This is just basic optimization for uTorrent, but it should definitely get you pointed in the right direction!

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