Steam Downloads

[mitchell271]

It definitely can vary, even without moving. I've personally never had trouble with it though. I use the closest server, which is in Toronto. I've got a 20mbps down speed and I average 2.1mbps from Steam, maxing at 3.8. My ISP loves to throttle though, partly because I'm in an apartment building, so it can go down to nothing within seconds.

 

[Hunter Hyena]

My issue with it usually stems from using Frontier (who has a freaking building at the end of my street that I can see from my window) yet they can only give me the "meh"est of internet connection speed.

 

[Branovices]

Odd, I never have any problems with Steam. I'd say it was your connection but you say other services work fine. Have you tried e-mailing their support or something?

 

[Bravo Company]

Damm, 2.5? the most I get is 1.8, which isn't too bad considering where I live.

I expect it'll get better once the fibre really gets laid down.

2.5 is pretty much the tippity top that we get. This is close to Central Auckland, which I assume is about as good as it gets? I don't know where you live. Of course I do

Who knows when we'll get fibre. My internet provider says mid 2015. Which is disappointing; I thought it'd be earlier than that.

But yeah, now that exams are over, I'm downloading games like a ************.

I have fibre and download at 700 kb/s, for me to upgrade my service I have to pay a stupid amount of money per month.


OT: I've noticed my DL speeds being slower when a huge release has just launched or if a patch just comes out. Probably because everybody is hogging the servers at once, but I've never really had any problems with it. It has only been a few times in ~6 years that I've noticed my downloads not downloading at full speed.

 

[Mad World]

I always thought that Steam was so amazing, but I find this, too. Origin seems to average at around 6.5 megabytes per second. However, Steam never goes above 5.5ish. I've seen Origin at over 7 before.

In Valve's defence, more people are probably using Steam; thus, more strain on their servers.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

steam is pretty awesome for me actually, usually takes the internet connection for it's full speed and uses it to my hearts content. (plus it fucks other people over in my house, I WANT MY GAMES DAMMIT, YOU CAN WATCH YOUR CAT VIDEOS LATER.)

it's faster than most other download services i've used, origin is usually just as good.

 

[joshuaayt]

Well, it feels reasonably fast for me- mind, 'reasonably fast' for me is '200 kb/s if I'm lucky', so I'm probably not the best judge. Certainly, it's not much slower than our internet can actually go.

 

[Vigormortis]

I've done all of those except the last one :-(

The last one wouldn't really be a viable solution because the router is in the living room. Thanks for the tips though. Appreciate it.

Ouch. That's inconvenient.

Though, now that I think about it, your router might be defaulting to a lower bandwidth for it's wireless signal. If you can access your router's settings you may want to try checking what it's set to. Could be nothing more than a factory defaulted download cap.

Or, it could be a poor connection to the Steam servers based on your location. It's exceptionally rare nowadays for that to be the case, given how widespread the Steam server farms are now, but it does happen.

Here's hoping it's something other than a regional issue. Best of luck diagnosing the issue.

 

[Vigormortis]

my downloads a random at best but i am having other problems with steam right now i got fable 3 on a sale last week and have not been able to play it because they ran out of cd keys


(if anyone else has had this problem how long did it take to solve)

It'll take however long it takes Bethesda to get more keys to Valve. So....couldn't tell you, really. I would assume no more than a week or two.

 

[SadisticFire]

The only time I've had with Steam downloads was with Payday 2 but that lies more with Overkill on how they wanted their game distrubuted. In chunks and validate each chunk before sending the next one on.

 

[Aesir23]

Honestly, the download time has to be my primary gripe with Steam and it's the #1 reason as to why I prefer physical copies over digital ones.

I bought Skyrim for my PC awhile ago and had to fiddle with it over the course of a week to get it to a place where it wouldn't crash once every hour (thanks to Bethesda and my four year old, semi-updated computer). This involved uninstalling and reinstalling multiple times for various reasons over the course of the week. Downloading the files via Steam took roughly three hours. To install it right from the disk (which took some minor fiddling as well) it took twenty minutes to install the full game.

Normally I don't mind something like a three hour download time, but when you have to uninstall and reinstall so many times it can wear on your nerves a bit.

I haven't downloaded anything from other digital distribution services so I can't really compare, but Steam's download times are the reason I always buy physical copies for PC games unless they're indie games or I have no other choice.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

I feel so sorry for you guys. I usually get somewhere around 15-20+ MB/s. There was one time where my download barely dipped below 30 MB/s with peaking at around 37 MB/s. It took me around four minutes to download Saint's Row 3. Yay having super good university internet.

It does have the problem of randomly dropping out for a few minutes, though. I'm not sure what's causing that, or even if it's something that can be avoided.

 

[Thebazilly]

Steam goes about the same for me as anything else does. I live kind of out in the country, so our "3MB/s" internet is more like "500kb/s if you're super lucky."

The only odd thing is that it fluctuates a lot. Sometimes it drops to zero for a few seconds or minutes and then climbs back up before tapering off again.

 

[Denamic]

It greatly depends on your location and time of day, as there's many different servers for different regions, and traffic vary. Here in Sweden, I get between 2 and 11MB/s, VERY rarely below that.

 

[Amir Kondori]

That is weird, I download super fast. I download on average anywhere from 3Mb/s up to 6Mb/s.

 

[romxxii]

Is it just me or does Steam have the WORST download time of any of the "Game Services" regularly used? (IE: Origin, Curse, Battle.net, Gamestop's Downloader etc.)

Not me. Steam maxes out my connection every time. I did have trouble downloading games before, when I was on a 3mbps connection. I solved it by complaining to my ISP; I told them sumbitches to stop blocking Steam. It worked.

For the record, I've used Steam, Origin, UPlay, GOG, direct HTTP download, and torrent. Out of all of those, I get my quickest downloads on Steam.

 

[Rinshan Kaihou]

I have no problems with steam downloads. I download at my max internet connection speed consistently all the time (ie 57mbps, or 7.2MB/s)

 

[Kyrian007]

All I know is this thread is making me feel lots better about my region. Previously I had thought I lived kind of at the ass end of internet capability (moving to a mid-sized city has helped a lot, previously I lived where a small ISP had a monopoly over a town.) But my 1 - 10 a second seems really awesome compared to some. I'd say trust me it isn't Steam, the very first game I bought via Steam was Skyrim... which downloaded in 12 minutes. I've never had anything take more than a half hour. It must be more where you are than Steam itself. I guess that internet infrastructure money going to the midwest and the plains isn't ALL being wasted.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

I download at my internets full speed which is roughly 85 Mb/s on Steam so I haven't the limiting side from Steam in many years.

 

[J Tyran]

Always get OK download speeds from Steam, 8-10MB/sec or so. PSN is probably the worst for me, even with the PS3 connected with a LAN cable games take four or five times longer to download than games from Steam or Origin do.