Torrents done right on hackintosh

[ero]

Personally, I have found that torrent clients for os x suck, both on real mac and on hacks. I've tried transmission and azureus, and decided I miss my favorite client (utorrent) and won't have it.

 

[i'm assuming that since this is a hackintosh community, we can probably obtain windows XP one way or another

Also, I chose windows XP rather than vista or any of the other ones because I find that XP is best for torrenting.

 

So what I did:

 

install VMware Fusion

Create a small VM for windows XP - 15 gigs, 256 ram, 2 CPU [core]s (I was being generous, I think you could get away with 5 gigs and 1 CPU core)

 

Then, once it's installed and booted for the first time, do the following:

 

1. Virtual Machine --> Install VM Ware Tools

 

2. Virtual Machine --> network --> bridged

 

[optional] at this point you can update your windows XP to SP3 or whatever upgrades you see fit, just make sure if you're using a downloaded version you know where to get the appropriate WGA workaround

3. Shut down windows (start --> shut down)

 

4. Virtual Machine --> network --> network settings

Click on shared folders. Make sure that both Enabled and Enabled at power on are checked off

 

5. Click on the little plus sign --> Add Shared folder

Check the enabled box, and give your folder a name. I called mine torrents

Then click on path to point it to where you want your torrents to be downloaded to on your machine

Make sure Read only is unchecked

 

6. Click OK and start your machine back up

 

7. Once it's booted, confirm that you have internet connectivity (open a web page). Then go to Start --> Control Panel --> Network connections

 

8. Right click on your network connection (should only be one there) and click properties.

Click the advanced tab, then windows firewall settings, and turn off windows firewall

Go back to the general tab, click Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and click properties.

Click "Use the following IP address" and give your VM a static IP on your network. Fill out the DNS and gateway info as well. (this will generally be your router's IP)

*NOTE: Make sure you give your VM an IP that is not already in use on the network. Your VM will appear as a separate machine on your network, to your router, etc.*

 

9. Open "My Computer" and go to Tools --> Map Network Drive. Pick a drive letter, and then click Browse. Expand (click the plus next to) VMWare shared folders, then expand .host, and expand shared folders. Here you should see the shared folder that you created. (The one I called torrents). Click on that folder and click ok. Make sure the reconect at logon option is checked. Click finish.

 

10. Go to utorrent.com and download the latest utorrent client, and install it. Then open utorrent and go to options --> speed guide. There, select your connection speed, and choose a port that you wish to use for your torrents. Again, pick a port thats not already in use, this is a whole new machine as far as your router is concerned. Click "use the selected settings" button

 

11. Forward that port properly in your router. Go to http://portforward.com/ for help with that.

 

12. Go back to speed guide and click the test if port is forwarded correctly button. A web browser should pop up telling you that your port is OK. If it says it is not OK then you have most likely not forwarded something properly, go back and recheck. Close speedguide.

 

13. Go to http://www.lvllord.de/?url=downloads and download the english patch. Run it. If after you run it Windows complains that a system file has been modified, tell it cancel, do not let windows repair the file.

 

14. Go to http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php and download and open the TCP optimizer. Drag the slider to your connection speed, click optimized settings, and tell it to apply them. It will ask you to reboot your computer. Do so.

 

15. You're done! When your computer starts back up, go to your favorite torrent site, and load up a torrent. Select your destination to save it to (your mapped network drive, or any subfolder on it, not your local C drive)

After your torrent starts up, there should be a little green check mark in a circle on the bottom of utorrent, that means everything is good.

 

 

 

Compare your speeds in utorrent to your speeds in any os x client. I've found it to be way way faster.

 

Let me know if this helped, and feel free to share your stories

[Hagar]

why so complicated?

 

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?pid=272461

 

This can be futher simplified by using a premade Darwine installer.

[ero]

wow, i didn't evne know that was a possibility. In any case, I prefer to have a small VM of XP anyway for testing purposes. It's not "complicated" I was just thorough in my instructions.

 

 

Also, i think XP manages connections better than OS X, or at least thats the impression im getting. And the darwine method seems to have a buncha bugs now that im reading it

[Synaesthesia]

why so complicated?

 

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?pid=272461

 

This can be futher simplified by using a premade Darwine installer.

Nice. I run uTorrent on my old windows box just because it's so good. Gonna try this out, thx

[vaporATX]

I prefer rTorrent myself, but I'm somewhat of a masochist.

[Geo Mandell]

I get speeds up to 200KBps with Transmission...that's just fine for me.