Good Ratio Quick Guide: Choose your downloads well.

[Guest ShtSpk]

The most common question that pops up in the chat room is "My ratio is crap! How can I improve it? I just got a warning!" Mind you've i've only been hanging out there 3 or 4 days at the time of writing this.. And I have seen the question well over a dozen times a day.

There's a few ways to improve your ratio such as setting your speed properly, making sure your client is configured properly, etc. One thing most people never consider is in the careful choosing of the files you download.

Chances are, you will download MUCH faster than you are able to upload. This is a Bittorrent fact of life. Accept it. And remember, once you spend your upload credits, the only way to get it back is by seeding.

That being said, consider this.

GAMES: How many times have you downloaded a game that is around 4gb and played it to only find it wasn't the kind of game you liked, or had technical issues that would keep you from playing it on your system? (ie, video card or sound card issues.)

A good way to make sure you aren't wasting your download credits:

· Google for a game review. There are a ton of sites out there. Read a few sites before making your decision. Don't go by the game's own homepage. They are selling you the game and will try to hype it as much as possible.

· Genre... If you don't like racing games, why download a racing game?

· System Specs. Typically, you can find these at the game's homepage. I've seen a ton of ppl spend 4.5 gb or some off credits downloading Earth 2160 only to find it was unplayable on their system specs.

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Porn:

Okay. So we all download porn. Enough said. How many times have you downloaded porn and were dissapointed? Take this into consideration.

· Most people are good enough to post a link with a front and back cover. Check it out. If you don't like the girls, don't download it.

·Genre, again. If you don't like sock puppet sex, why would you download sock puppet sex?

Appz:

·Is it something you will actually use?

·Have you checked out the product's homepage and read 3rd party reviews on it?

·Can your system specs handle it?

These principles can be applied to anything that is up for download here.

The whole idea is to be careful in how you download. Most of the people that have low ratios and are getting warnings are simply grabbing everything that catches their eye as soon as they spot it, without doing any real work to see if its something they will like. These are the same ppl that leave bitchy comments after downloading the file such as "Full of ugly girls" or "Can't run on my system, game sucks."

And don't be so eager to have a zillion downloads going at once. Okay, so there's alot of cool stuff here... But if you act like a hungry kid in a candy store with a credit card, chances are you won't keep a good ratio. No matter what your upload limit is, it is very possible to keep an excellent ratio if you are *careful* with what you download and upload accordingly.

Remember, no one wants to ban you. Nobody likes kicking users around. The whole point of a ratio system isn't to make you feel stupid. Its to make sure we are all getting the files we each really want, and ensuring that there is the bandwidth to do so.

So, if you see a hot new title, read the description, the nfo if you can view it, and do about 3 minutes of googling on the file before getting it, and chances are, you may find yourself concentrating on the stuff you really want...

Instead of having a ton of stuff on your hard drive that you will only delete as soon as you can.

Good luck, and happy leeching!

***Addendum***

This comes from my experience in the chat room over the last few days. So the minumum ratio is .4. Okay, we know that.

I see alot of ppl coming in who were say around .35 and have just gotten a warning and are frantically trying to seed before their warning time has expired. Not to mention these ppl have been around for a few months, so have had plenty of time to build up a good ratio.

*Please* remember that no one *wants* to ban you. You are in control of your own experience here, no matter what your upload and download speed happens to be. You are responsible for your own ratio.

The staff here wants your experience to be not only a good one, but an exceptionally good one.

So that being said, please take measures to try to prevent your ratio from going below .4. If your ratio hovers contantly in the .4 to .3 range, chances are you will drop below it sometime. And you may stay there due to going out of town, your puppy died, you were grounded from the internet, etc. So you are strongly encouraged to keep your ratio well above the minimum, just in case real life throws you a curve ball.

Be prepared for a bad ratio week. Think ahead and try to beat the expectations, and you find your experience vastly improved. Sometimes its nice to see a few things that you want and say "Yup, my ratio can handle that" and not think twice about hitting the Get button.

Good luck!

Author: BoomShankar

[Guest ynzrik]

wow this guide was very helpfull, i always had that. i always got a warning because of my ratio. thnx for help:P +1

[Guest Mang0man]

NIce

[Guest masina9ebuna]

thanks a lot>>> this post is very usefull :D

[Guest ameypv]

Good one. Thanks.

[Proteus]

All good advice for noobs