taking gb/gbc/gba games and dumping them onto pc

[Legendeer]

Why would running my own tracker be out of the question? Is it difficult to do?

Maybe I should search the net for a site that uses torrents and trackers etc already, then I could look at how they do it and I would get a better idea of how it works.

[Jet Set Willy]

suprnova.org is perhaps the best known one, and the biggest, but it's very slow because of all the traffic (and I shouldn't really be posting it here, oh well).

A tracker would be hard to run because it requires having a machine permanently connected to the Internet to run the tracker. You can't just host it on free Web space unfortunately.

Some tracker information here: http://btfaq.com/serve/cache/57.html

You could potentially run one on a PHP & MySQL web account, but I doubt you'll find a suitable one for free, and it would probably be shut down by the host anyway.

[Legendeer]

having my own tracker would be out of the question then, you're right. Thanks for the link, I'm looking at it now.

But I don't think websites with trackers would see the point of letting me link to their trackers. And that would mean I couldn't choose what ROMS to link to, so it would be like a copy of their site. Hmm.....

[Jet Set Willy]

No, you can create your own torrent files, which use their trackers to manage all of the download/upload organisation. You'd still have a .torrent file which you could host on your own site (and they'd likely host it on their sites too, as payment for using their tracker). A torrent can be hosted anywhere, as it's basically just a link to the trackers.

You might be interested in having a look at http://animesuki.com/, a site run by the owner of this site (I think it shares the same host machine as Emulator-Zone too). It's a good example of how a torrent site works. I imagine a lot of those torrents use a tracker which is not affiliated with the same site.

[Legendeer]

Okay, so first I need to find a site that would let me use a tracker (do I need just 1 tracker for all the ROMs, or 1 tracker for every ROM?).

Then I need to find out how to use trackers, or whatever I would need to do to find sharers of the ROMs I want to host (However you do that ).

Then I'm done. Is that right?

thanks!!!

Oh and by the way, I've installed bittorrent but I can't find it in Start>Programs. Plus, I've been back onto the game boy roms site, but I click on the download link and a box comes up saying windows cannot find SHAREAZA.EXE. I think you have to have bittorrent running, except it doesn't seem to exist on my PC even though I've installed it. I did Start>Search and typed bittorrent but I only got a couple of .ico files, some .dll's and a readme file.

[Jet Set Willy]

Shareazaa is probably causing all of those errors, it messes up file associations. BitTorrent would normally launch automatically. Perhaps you should uninstall Shareaza and reinstall BitTorrent.

You use a special program to build torrents (http://krypt.dyndns.org:81/torrent/maketorrent/). It will ask you for the filename and a few options, and the URL of the tracker you want to use.

For the torrent to work you'll need to always have at least one person sharing the file. Generally as the torrent gets popular this is never a problem, as there are always people with it open. If you get some torrents going I can help you there - I can make sure I'm always keeping some of your torrents open, as my computer is connected pretty much permanently.

[Jet Set Willy]

Once you have a torrent set up and shared, you'll have an interface like this to keep track of it:

(it's good etiquette to keep a torrent uploading until your share rating is above 1.0 - that means you've uploaded as much as you've downloaded)

[Legendeer]

If you get some torrents going I can help you there - I can make sure I'm always keeping some of your torrents open, as my computer is connected pretty much permanently.

Thanks for the offer, that would be great. So I only need to use one tracker? What websites should I be looking for to ask them to use one of theirs?

I have already uninstalled shareaza a little while ago. I dunno if it uninstalled properly or what though. but it's not on the system anymore.

The only thing I don't understand is how will the first ever person to my website download a ROM, because there won't be any sharers because no one will have downloaded it?

[Jet Set Willy]

Usually the person who puts the torrent up will keep it open on their own computer for a while so that people can connect to it and download it, so that it propogates to a few other people. That's called "seeding" the torrent - a seed is a person who is sharing the full file for everybody else to download. That's the reason I can help you there - you'll need somebody constantly seeding the file for a while.

I don't really know which tracker you should use. I know that maketorrent has some tracker links built in - I guess you just have to keep making torrents with different trackers until you come up with one which works. You'll know when it doesn't work because BitTorrent will say "Error connecting to tracker".

[Legendeer]

I've just made a torrent, but the tracker didn't work - I was just messing around and seeing how it worked. I'll try with the other built in trackers too. Thanks!

and would it be possible for me to ZIP the ROMS before I add them to a .torrent file? Then that would speed up download time too.

Do i just need to add a normal link to a web page to test the tracker? Like this:-

Link Text and that will work?