Partial torrent file calculations when using VIP

[vkgowler]

Can someone please clarify the following 2 situations

1. I have a file downloading, total size 1 GB. I have downloaded 750MB through normal traffic and then choose to VIP accelerate the file. BitComet clearly recognizes that there is only 250MB of the file remaining, however when I start the VIP accel, it deducts the full 1GB . Is this how your system works? Should I only use VIP for brand new files? In cases of large media files, I would tend to want to download enough of the file to be able to preview and make sure it's legit, but it seems to me that having the entire file size deducted from my account is wrong. Sould I not only be deducted for the remaining size of the file?

2. In a post from another user, he mentions having a 50GB file and I believe admin said that almost never exists. Maybe what was not understood is that the complete torrent file could be 50GB , because it is a combination of 10 albums for example. each one being 5GB.

Now, I have the 10GB package, and only select Album 3 which is 5GB. BitComet clearly shows that I have selected 5GBs, just like it knows how much of a file is remaining in my previous question. VIP will not let me start acceleration on this file because it is taking the entire torrents size. Why can't the 'requested size or remaining size' be passed to the server when it queries, rather then the full torrent size?

[The UnUsual Suspect]

Hi, first of all in the other topic your referring to, both that member and you are confusing what the word "file" means. A torrent file is always very small, usually much less then 1mB in size. When used it usually downloads multiple files in a process where small pieces of those files are downloaded.

I believe where your confusing yourself is your calling the entire "task" as a "file", which it's not. Any task, be it bittorrent, http/ftp or ed2k can have one or more files in it. As for the size of files, most are well under 1gB in size, but I have seem some cases where high definition video was distributed in files as large as 20gB, but that is extremely rare, and some file systems can't even handle files larger then 4gB in size.

Regarding your inquiry. When enabling vip, it works on a per task basis and deducts the total task size from your available bandwidth. There has been some discussion on adding an option to enable vip on a partial torrent download, and this may be introduced in the future, but please understand these developments need to be tested and introduced only after they are reasonably stable, so I can't say when or if this will be done.

As for your case of enabling vip after a task was nearly complete. VIP wasn't designed to do this, and in most cases it won't help much under these circumstances anyway. I'd imagine most users who wait till the end of the task to enable vip would do so because the task progress has halted, usually because the required pieces to complete the task aren't available, but although vip can help you get the pieces faster, it cannot get pieces that aren't available, so would be useless in these situations.

I do have one suggestion if your concerned about downloading a task that isn't what you expected it to be using vip. There is an option where you can cancel vip if the task doesn't complete, so if you download a large task using vip and in the process you discover it isn't what it was represented to be, you should be able to stop the task, then after a total of 24hours from the time you started it, you should be able to cancel the vip. This "cancel" option was designed for cases where the task was unable to complete, not for cases like this where you elect not to complete it, but I think it would probably work just the same, although the development team would have the final word on this so I'm just offering it as a suggestion to try.

However, the best way to assure something is what it claims to be is to view the torrents comments on the website where you got it. Most bad torrents are quickly commented then removed, at least on the websites that properly moderate their uploads.

[Lucy26]

Hi VK, I've also replied your PM, please check it. :)