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Weezer · Oct 28, 2003, 09:31 PM

Has anyone tried using it under panther? My AIM transfer speeds are once again really slow, but am a little scared to try the program under panther. Thoughts?

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/12591

OptimusG4 · Oct 28, 2003, 09:39 PM

Works fine for me (15" PB G4/667MHz)

chezpaul · Oct 29, 2003, 12:03 AM

Been using it too.. Haven't done any stats though to see if it really makes a difference in Panther...

Come to think of it, I didn't do a stat on 10.2 either.. only on 10.1.5, it gave me 20% increase speed...

nobitacu · Oct 29, 2003, 02:34 AM

Sweet! didn't know about such program. I'm going to try it too see if it makes any difference.

Thanks for the link.

Ming

nobitacu · 03:42 AM

Just installed it, and restarted my computer. I'm using Panther. And yes, I do feel that my network speed has increased, not a lot, but enough, I would say at the very least a 20% to 30% increase in speed. I'm very happy with the performances. No problems at all so far. Works fine under Panther. Wow, I love the speed increase with this thing, almost feels like I'm on T3 again.

I also tried changing my setting to 49152, and now my speed is even faster. I would say a over all at least 50% faster in net speed. At least when it comes to loading webpages.

Ming

badtz · Oct 29, 2003, 11:38 PM

would this result in the same effect as if you downloaded cocktail, and set the network settings to "broadband"???

Boochie · Oct 30, 2003, 05:42 AM

I re-installed broadband optimizer after upgrading to 10.3. Testing with bandwidthplace.com/speedtest, my download speeds went from about 1.9 Mb/sec (before BBO) to 2.4 Mb/sec (after BBO).

sanity assassin · Oct 30, 2003, 07:01 AM

I kept the default config. settings, is it better to reduce them, or just leave them as they are? I'm on a 512 kbs adsl line.

Default:
net.inet.tcp.sendspace: 65536
net.inet.tcp.recvspace: 65536
net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack: 0
net.inet.udp.recvspace: 73728

OptimusG4 · Oct 30, 2003, 08:42 AM

Originally posted by badtz:
would this result in the same effect as if you downloaded cocktail, and set the network settings to "broadband"???

Yea but its free.

malvolio · Oct 30, 2003, 09:50 AM

Originally posted by sanity assassin:
I kept the default config. settings, is it better to reduce them, or just leave them as they are? I'm on a 512 kbs adsl line.

Default:
net.inet.tcp.sendspace: 65536
net.inet.tcp.recvspace: 65536
net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack: 0
net.inet.udp.recvspace: 73728

IIRC, those settings are to give you the best speed with a cable modem, while using 41592 for the tcp.sendspace and tcp.recvspace values is the most common setting for DSL.
Try changing the values and see which works best for you.

TC · Oct 30, 2003, 09:54 AM

Any ideas on what would be good for 10MB fibre optic? That's FastWeb Italia if anyone knows it.

sanity assassin · Oct 30, 2003, 11:05 AM

Originally posted by malvolio:
IIRC, those settings are to give you the best speed with a cable modem, while using 41592 for the tcp.sendspace and tcp.recvspace values is the most common setting for DSL.
Try changing the values and see which works best for you.

Thanks, changed it just there, so will see what happens.

sanity assassin · Oct 30, 2003, 11:07 AM

wow, damn, made a big difference, not so much in actual speed, but in that multiple downloads are faster. no bad.

Also, web browsing is faster, the past few days after upgrading Panther, and installing BBO, I thought it felt slower, but i guess reducing the amounts did something.

mcsjgs · Oct 30, 2003, 01:43 PM

This is a pleasant surprise. Noticeable increase in page loading speed in Safari.

sanity assassin · Oct 30, 2003, 01:51 PM

Originally posted by mcsjgs:
This is a pleasant surprise. Noticeable increase in page loading speed in Safari.

Yup. that's what I got too, nice.

chezpaul · Oct 30, 2003, 03:12 PM

When I said 20%.. that was an actual stat number that I got.. not a guess... I did 10 speed tests before and after, did an average and got the stat. For those wondering...

Boochie · Oct 30, 2003, 07:22 PM

That's consistent with the results I got (1.9 Mb/sec to 2.4). Nothing to sneeze at for such a simple program.

Originally posted by chezpaul:
When I said 20%.. that was an actual stat number that I got.. not a guess... I did 10 speed tests before and after, did an average and got the stat. For those wondering...

mcsjgs · Oct 30, 2003, 10:32 PM

To confirm that your system has been optimized, the author of the program wrote:

To verify that the changes are in effect, open Terminal and type sysctl -a (that's a letter L on the end, not a number 1.) The listing should contain the following lines:

net.inet.tcp.sendspace: 65536
net.inet.tcp.recvspace: 65536
net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack: 0
net.inet.udp.recvspace: 73728

mcsjgs · Oct 30, 2003, 11:00 PM

Here is the actual link:

http://www.enigmarelle.com/sw/BroadbandOptimizer/

and what the author has to say:

Like most operating systems, MacOS X doesn't come out of the box to take full advantage of a high-speed, broadband internet connection. Luckily, because of its Unix base, there's an easy fix for that. By making certain tweaks to your network settings, you may be able to almost double your download speeds.

Broadband Optimizer works by increasing the memory buffers used for TCP transfers, so that data comes in bigger chunks at at time - Man-sized broadband chunks, not modem-sized kiddie chunks.

For this version I've removed a network check that turned out to be unnecessary - BBO should now work on PPPoE-based DSL connections without modification - and also cleaned up the code a bit. ( thanks Guillaume

Here's how to install Broadband Optimizer:

While logged in under an admin account, Open the Library folder at the root level of your startup disk

If there's no folder named StartupItems inside, create one in the usual way. Name it StartupItems - no spaces, capitalization counts.

Move the entire BroadbandOptimizer folder in this disk image into the StartupItems folder (/Library/StartupItems/)

Restart

If you get a message saying you don't have enough privileges to modify the StartupItems folder, you can either startup into OS9 to move the folder, or you can fix the permissions on /Library to allow group admin write access. The permissions should look like drwxrwxr-x. Some installers seem to modify the permissions on this folder incorrectly. The command to do this is sudo chmod 775 /Library but since it's a bad idea to just blindly type anything some stranger tells you to type in Terminal, you shouldn't do it unless you understand at least the rudiments of Unix permissions.

To verify that the changes are in effect, open Terminal and type sysctl -a (that's a letter L on the end, not a number 1.) The listing should contain the following lines:

net.inet.tcp.sendspace: 65536
net.inet.tcp.recvspace: 65536
net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack: 0
net.inet.udp.recvspace: 73728

Enjoy your newfound speed

You may want to further tweak your settings for your particular connection by opening the file named BroadbandOptimizer inside the folder you just installed in any text editor (BBEdit, vi, or our own TideText work well. If you use TextEdit make sure you're saving the file in plain text mode, not RTF.) Change the numbers above to a slightly lower amount (they're already set as high as is likely to make any improvement.) The OSX default is 32768, so that's the lower limit that makes any sense. Try 49152 to start with.

While you're trying out new settings there's no need to edit the script and restart after each change - open Terminal and type sudo sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.sendspace=49152 (or whatever setting you're experimenting with) then hit Return. This has the same effect as running BBO. Broadband Optimizer merely automates the process so you don't have to type it in after each login.

Disclaimer: I make no guarantees express or implied about anything whatsoever. BroadbandOptimizer works fine for me on my connection. YMMV. Don't use bright, gaudy colored pictures as your desktop background; you'll ruin your eyes.

threestain · Oct 31, 2003, 08:23 AM

What's the correct setting for a 512/256 adsl connection? 49512 or 41592 or just play around til it works?

mcsjgs · Oct 31, 2003, 12:38 PM

Originally posted by threestain:
What's the correct setting for a 512/256 adsl connection? 49512 or 41592 or just play around til it works?

Cocktail 3.1 sets the broadband optimization at DSL settings when you optimize them in the program. You may want to give this a try.

Weezer · Nov 2, 2003, 10:39 PM

Installed it, my AIM transfers within our campus network went from 100k/sec back up to 700 k/sec, nice

Boochie · Nov 3, 2003, 08:59 AM

What packet size parameters did you use? That's quite a speedup!

Originally posted by Weezer:
Installed it, my AIM transfers within our campus network went from 100k/sec back up to 700 k/sec, nice

badtz · Nov 3, 2003, 08:10 PM

does cocktail have optimized settings for cable modem also? or should the DLS settings be correct?

mcsjgs · Nov 4, 2003, 12:39 PM

Originally posted by badtz:
does cocktail have optimized settings for cable modem also? or should the DLS settings be correct?

Cocktail 3.1 only offers DSL settings (41592). I saw no way to change them in the program. If you have DSL, they should be fine. Broadband Optimizer's settings are for a cable modem- 65536.

AliP · Nov 5, 2003, 03:13 PM

When i run a spped test for the first ime i get a fairly cvonsistent downstream speed of say 48-50 KB/sec but my upstream speed will be only 14-18 KB/sec. If i then re-run the test i get a similar downstream speed but a greatley improved upstream speed of say 28.5KB/sec?
Is there any particular reason for this.
I've installed cocktail in order to optimize my settings for broadband and i've got a 512 ADSL connection. I'm running Panther on an iMac G3 600.
KRO
Ali P