Download speeds

Author
Discussion

puggit

Original Poster:

48,553 posts

250 months

Friday 14th November 2003
quotequote all
I've noticed that when you start downloading something from the internet that the speed starts very fast and drops down to a normal level after about 10-15 secs.

I assume this is because Windows is trying to calculate some sort of average speed - but why does the downloaded amount of data appear very high too?

plotloss

67,280 posts

272 months

Friday 14th November 2003
quotequote all
Its because it downloads a little in a buffer and then starts squeezing it through the processor.

This has the effect of the progress bar recieving a lot of data at once and it extrapolating that calculation out so it appears quick at first and then averages out.

_DJ_

4,905 posts

256 months

Saturday 15th November 2003
quotequote all
AFAIK Explorer starts the file transfer then asks you where you want to put the file. However, it measures the transfer rate from when you specify the location to save the file. So, if you

1) select the file to download
2) wait 1 minute before specifying the location

then your average transfer speed will be shown as 60 times faster than it actually is.

Darren.



>> Edited by _DJ_ on Saturday 15th November 16:15