Ugh.... Steam

[ShadowDude112]

The only problem I had with Steam was when Left 4 Dead 2 was released, something was up so I couldn't play the game I think it wouldn't run or something. So I had to re-download Steam. That's basically it.

 

[muckinscavitch]

If you defrag your pc often enough, it shouldn't take very long. I have a 380 gig hard drive, 3/4 full and it only takes about 30 mins.

A hint for defragging, is not to use the default windows defrag, but to use the command prompt defrag.exe. For more info, open command prompt and type defrag.exe ? . I use defrag.exe -c -w -f -v . It does the full job completly and the first time I ran it, it did take 20 hours or so, but now it only takes 30 mins and it also found me an extra 20 gigs of free space!

OT: I have never had any issues with steam. Always downloads really fast and never snags or anything. I love it.

 

[CK76]

No issues, I just know when I install anything (Steam or otherwise) don't need to tax my computer too much during that time. usually install a game before bed, next morning all done.

 

[conflictofinterests]

It's mostly Vista. I used to have it on that, and then I switched my OS back to XP and it was still slow, but it was not NEARLY that bad.

 

[Mike Richards]

The defrag thing is probably just your machine. I've never heard of that happening in relation to steam before.

There's a reason for the estimates being wrong though. They don't recalculate to match your connection speed, they just give a time for a constant speed. If you take their estimate and figure out how much yours is off by you can probably get a good idea of how much time is left.

 

[AgDr_ODST]

uh, no. my experiences with steam is rather smooth. maybe you have to much stuff stored up in your drive?

what this guy(^) said even though my only experience thus far with Steam has been downloading Portal while they were offering it up for free.

 

[Quesa]

I'm confused, what does your computer's impossibly fragmented state have to do with Steam?

 

[Pentarch]

Sounds like its vista too me, I run xp and I never have any problems with steam.

 

[Yokai]

Steam's always worked like a charm for me. Sounds like a problem with your computer or internet connection.

 

[Billion Backs]

Steam always worked fine for me... Although tonight there was a bit of a fuck up when I tried connecting to TF2, something got overloaded. Never seen it happen before... But at least it stopped me from procrastination.

 

[q12345678901234567890]

So, I made a decision from my other thread and went with TF2. I buy it, hit download, and go shoot some pool with some friends. Now I come back and see my bandwidth isn't being eaten anymore, so I get ready to play me some team fortress 2. I go check and the download was suspended. Apparently my HDD got so fragmented from 2/3rds of the download, it refuses to download. So now I get to run my defragger that takes ages. I started the download and it got another MB of data before it suspended again (no surprise, wanted to see how much time it was gonna take after the slow ass vista defrag). The estimated time is now THREE HOURS (more than the original estimate for the entire game!) and my speed isn't any lower than before.

Is this a normal steam thing? Because if so they can say goodbye to any further purchases online. In fact, I wouldn't use it but for the three games I have that need steam to play. It's impossibly infuriating, too, because I can't play it till near midnight tomorrow now, too busy in the day.

Not really, is there any other computers or game systums on? Anything like that can cause that to happen. But it might be also your router.

 

[Shru1kan]

I had an issue with suspended downloads when I got Portal for free, but everything else has been smooth. I didn't research it much, I just figured it had to do with their servers being overloaded with the Mac release and the increase in traffic from that. It eventually resumed by itself and downloaded just fine, just took longer than normal. But oh well, I've never been the foaming-at-the-mouth type of gamer who can't wait for a while to play something that's been out for years.

EDIT: I meant to ask, why do you believe it was a fragmented hard drive causing the problem? Could it have been something else?

it told me my data was fragmented severely.

@EVERYONE I have over half my HDD free


Oh and it turns out my ISP (AT&T) is choking my bandwidth. I'm watching them do it and there's gonna be a phone call tomorrow to them, thats for sure.

They do the same thing to me, but "uh" what do I do about it?

Last time they did it to me I called them up and told off the techies. I don't know if it was a fluke (the guy wasn't bright, said my broadband was supposed to abruptly cut off), but after about 10 minutes of forcefully reasoning (AKA subtly insulting his intelligence and part anger) he said he'd fix it. I didn't believe him, but it happened. No chokes in 1.5 years. Until today. Hope it company policy to avoid a lawsuit on an unlimited plan so I can do the same thing to the next guy unlucky enough to tell me its my problem.

Thing is though, I have an ace. Our lines got corroded somewhere, so they bumped us down a speed as to not overload the wire. They said they'd fix it, and this was a long while ago. My parents have been overpaying for a while now, and they better listen or I might feel inclined to get some people fired.

 

[Skizle]

Question: Do you have Windows 7? If so I think thats the issue. Ever since the new UI change all I've been having problems (I have the 64 bit version btw) I can even re-download any of my games without getting a blue screen.

EDIT. Also if your computer shut down during any download then you will get this.

 

[Plurralbles]

it took me 4 hours to DL portal. But I never had to check on it, it worked perfectly. Just took a while because of my connection.

and then it had problems until I used the task manager to shut it down and knock out steam for a while.


And all my antivirus' are at halfmast right now to make sure everything runs okay.

Steam is not that great, but for playing a free game, I can handle it. I'd be pissed if I was like you and paid for my game though.

I still have to buy civ V and Rome total war Alexander though someday(due to a mod coming out for it)

 

[feather240]

I had an issue with suspended downloads when I got Portal for free, but everything else has been smooth. I didn't research it much, I just figured it had to do with their servers being overloaded with the Mac release and the increase in traffic from that. It eventually resumed by itself and downloaded just fine, just took longer than normal. But oh well, I've never been the foaming-at-the-mouth type of gamer who can't wait for a while to play something that's been out for years.

EDIT: I meant to ask, why do you believe it was a fragmented hard drive causing the problem? Could it have been something else?

it told me my data was fragmented severely.

@EVERYONE I have over half my HDD free


Oh and it turns out my ISP (AT&T) is choking my bandwidth. I'm watching them do it and there's gonna be a phone call tomorrow to them, thats for sure.

They do the same thing to me, but "uh" what do I do about it?

Last time they did it to me I called them up and told off the techies. I don't know if it was a fluke (the guy wasn't bright, said my broadband was supposed to abruptly cut off), but after about 10 minutes of forcefully reasoning (AKA subtly insulting his intelligence and part anger) he said he'd fix it. I didn't believe him, but it happened. No chokes in 1.5 years. Until today. Hope it company policy to avoid a lawsuit on an unlimited plan so I can do the same thing to the next guy unlucky enough to tell me its my problem.

Thing is though, I have an ace. Our lines got corroded somewhere, so they bumped us down a speed as to not overload the wire. They said they'd fix it, and this was a long while ago. My parents have been overpaying for a while now, and they better listen or I might feel inclined to get some people fired.

Too bad I don't have the self confidence to yell at a guy on the phone. Heck, I don't even like phones.
"Uh, you're throttling my bandwidth."
"Nope, it's supposed to cut off."
"Oh, sorry."
The companies are smart though. A lot of people only need the internet for slow work and browsing so cutting it off usually doesn't hurt anyone, it's still annoying though. Stupid AT&T, blocking my torrents.