Torrent client for PSP

Xis · Post by **Xis** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 10:44 am

I would like to know if it is likelly that something like this will appear, or if it is in development right now?

Stellar · Post by **Stellar** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 2:07 pm

Ild like to see that, but if it is in development, theres only chance that they monitor this board and will respond to your post. If i werent so wrapped up in my 3d development I would probably attempt it. I may in the future if no one else does.

J.F. · Post by **J.F.** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 2:08 pm

While I imagine someone will write one, I don't see the usefullness for the PSP. Bittorrent requires SOLID use of both upload and download bandwidth for extended periods of time. Running the networking is one of the things that runs down the battery on the PSP from what I understand. BT for PSP would really only be useful for tiny files where the person is inconsiderate and doesn't bother seeding after downloading.

AyAn4m1 · Post by **AyAn4m1** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 2:28 am

BitTorrent would be useless over wireless, end of story. Now, if someone wrote a client and server so that the PSP did the BT processing and interfaced with a storage layer on a PC via USB... but in that case, why not just use a PC BitTorrent client? The answer is that you should. A PSP BitTorrent client has no reason to exist.

Stellar · Post by **Stellar** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 6:32 am

why not, specifically? Ild love to be able to download my weekly shows and stuff from my psp while im at work, so i can avoid the whole 'why are you downloading naruto during work hours' scenario. or just the ability to do it while I dont have a pc around, like vacation would be nice. Although, i do agree that in general, a pc is much more practicle, I dont belive that the program would be useless. unless there is some type of technical limitation that prevents the psp from effectivly acting as a client -_-

BitTorrent client has no reason to exist

Mr.Modem · Post by **Mr.Modem** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 7:08 am

Although a torrent client on the PSP would be nice I don't think it will be easy to do. AFAIK torrent clients needs a lot of memory.

Rich43 · Post by **Rich43** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 7:21 pm

That would be soo cool, I have a very noisy computer (loud fans on GFX card etc) and I have to leave it on for bittorrent. gets a little annoying at night.....

So I could just leave it torrenting on my PSP hehe that would be neat :)

(PSP has AC adapter, battery aint a problem) and it has lots of memory too :), I think it has enough wireless bandwidth, not sure if memory stick is fast enough, i normally download at about 20-50KB/s.

Gary13579 · Post by **Gary13579** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 11:17 am

I've actually been thinking about making a P2P network that uses a PC client to share files. You choose one folder on your PC to share, and then anyone can download your files onto their PSP.
It will moniter upload/download, and if your ratio gets too low, you will be banned.

Only problem is, I don't know ANYTHING about the PSP's WiFi...
Can anyone point me to some sample code of connecting to another IP?
I see code in the SDK for starting a server, but that's not what I want...

DustinFraze · Post by **DustinFraze** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 6:00 pm

AyAn4m1 wrote:BitTorrent would be useless over wireless, end of story.

Tell it to the wireless connection I get at college. Beats my hardwired connection at home, hands down. Wireless B, however...yes.

Stellar wrote:why not, specifically? Ild love to be able to download my weekly shows and stuff from my psp while im at work, so i can avoid the whole 'why are you downloading naruto during work hours' scenario. or just the ability to do it while I dont have a pc around, like vacation would be nice. Although, i do agree that in general, a pc is much more practicle, I dont belive that the program would be useless. unless there is some type of technical limitation that prevents the psp from effectivly acting as a client -_-

BitTorrent client has no reason to exist

Did somebody say technical limitation?

The majority of us have flash devices used for storage on the PSP. Flash devices have a technical limitation of something around 100,000 writes per sector, give or take a few. Probably give a few, as they have to be tested and formatted before they reach consumers. Bit-torrent downloads work such that the file is not downloaded contiguously; the file is split several times (typically hundreds), and each part is downloaded in a "random" (for all intents and purposes of this conversation. There is a very specific way to determine which chuck is downloaded, but it goes beyond the scope of this topic) order. As the file nears completion, the client assembles the chunks in the proper order, and you have your file.

Now, side note: Flush. In PC systems, I/O devices are the bottle neck. Writing to the hard drive takes forever, compared to every other component. In order to get a speed up, OS's have flush intervals, where data that is to be written is held in RAM until sync is called, or RAM runs out, whichever happens first. The bittorrent calls sync after a user configurable (though nicely set default) amount of time / data.

To be quick, chunks are downloaded not one at a time, but as many (or few) as the torrent and your computer can handle. This means that the drive is being written to quite a bit. Couple that with a write interval that has to be smaller than 32 MB (PSP RAM size), and you're really hitting a lot of writes. Not downloading larger than 32 MB? The number of torrents that size is small. And they're still segmented, and it's dumb not to flush to disk before the download is complete; a reset results in no data being downloaded.

Mix the above with the *slow* (far slower than an IDE hard drive) write speeds of the memory stick duo, and *that* is why I believe we won't be seeing a BT client on the PSP.

*IF* the majority got the 3rd party hard drive add on, and *IF* the hard drive was sped up (it is currently slower than the flash memory, by the few reviews I've read), then *maybe* it'll be done. Otherwise, it's really a lost cause. You'll end up either losing a lot of data, or burning out the write cycles on the flash memory.