Launching any steam game instantly kills my internet

[Big_Man1986]

I noticed that when I launch any steam game it kills my internet. I use a wired connection (ethernet) and get consistently 90-100mbps download and 90-100mbps upload speed.

However whenever I launch any game on steam it instantly lowers my internet speed to under 5mbps download and 1mbps upload.

Even stranger though, launching other games not on steam such as apex legends or Fortnite doesnt hurt my internet nearly as much and leaves me at about 80-90mbps download and 80-90mbps upload. this leads me to believe its an issue with steam.

ive already changed my DNS and and Ive already lowered my in-game server browser max ping to its lowest value (250). neither of these fixes have worked for me.

if anyone has any better or more helpful ideas id be very appreciative

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Wait, launching a game affecting your internet performance? Does the speed returns after few seconds, or remains as so? How do you know you lost speed, as in what did you do to test this out.

If it not just Steam, then I can assume this is a hardware, or software issue. As you said when launch other games not from Steam, you don't seem to have bad as Steam, but you're still being affected speed lost.

- It could be a 3rd party app running in background. Which if using any 3rd party app that manage your internet traffic, or how things read or write, then might want to look into that.

- It could be driver issue, such as using out of date driver, either the bios need to be updated on your system, or realtek need to be updated, or repaired.

[ReBoot]

See if your router has "security" filters. I remember stuff like DDoS protection reacting overly paranoid to Steams traffic. Really, disable all of them, they're worse than useless when done wrong and consumer routers don't have the resources (both computational and R&D) to do it right.

[Kargor]

引用自 Dr.Shadowds 🐉：

- It could be driver issue, such as using out of date driver, either the bios need to be updated on your system, or realtek need to be updated, or repaired.

Just FYI: network drivers basically don't need updates. I can't remember ever updating a network driver, which means I'm either using one that came with Windows, or just whatever was current at the time I set up the system "years ago".

But yes, Steam doesn't reconfigure your network. Even the download-speed-limit that you can configure in the settings is just used by the Steam downloader; it's not hacking into the system to limit the speed.

引用自 ReBoot：

See if your router has "security" filters. I remember stuff like DDoS protection reacting overly paranoid to Steams traffic. Really, disable all of them, they're worse than useless when done wrong and consumer routers don't have the resources (both computational and R&D) to do it right.

And you don't generally need it. In consumer setups, boxes aren't directly connected to the Internet, so most security problems don't apply. "DDoS" is more than useless as there is NOTHING a router can do to stop somebody else from sending data -- and that's not even answering the most basic question: why would anyone even want to "DDoS" a consumer box? It's not like they'll get anything out of it...

[Big_Man1986]

i noticed this while trying to stream. im using the data im getting from speedtest.net as a measure of impact on internet speed. for instance when i open any game on steam my internet speed drastically drops from 90-100mbps for both download and upload speeds to about 5mbps download and 1 mbps upload, however when opening a game on literally any other platform such as origin launcher (apex legends) epic games store(Fortnite) or even blizzards launcher(black ops 4) the speedtest returns with speeds closer to 80-90mbps for both download and upload.

also with any steam game open my internet speeds stay slowed but with any other game open (like apex legends or Fortnite) the internet takes much less of a hit.

i understand that with games running and using bandwidth there is bound to be a slowing of internet speed however running steam games completely destroys my internet speeds while running any other game not on steam doesnt

also ive made sure all of my drivers are up to date and that there are no 3rd party services running in the background using up bandwidth. the issue quite clearly occurs the exact moment any steam game launches

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

引用自 Kargor：

引用自 Dr.Shadowds 🐉：

- It could be driver issue, such as using out of date driver, either the bios need to be updated on your system, or realtek need to be updated, or repaired.

Just FYI: network drivers basically don't need updates. I can't remember ever updating a network driver, which means I'm either using one that came with Windows, or just whatever was current at the time I set up the system "years ago".

But yes, Steam doesn't reconfigure your network. Even the download-speed-limit that you can configure in the settings is just used by the Steam downloader; it's not hacking into the system to limit the speed.

You be correct, but if someone install an outdated driver that was known to cause problems, then in this case it would be good idea to update it to the newest one, it's hard to say what could be the cause for certain.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

引用自 Excisus：

i noticed this while trying to stream. im using the data im getting from speedtest.net as a measure of impact on internet speed. for instance when i open any game on steam my internet speed drastically drops from 90-100mbps for both download and upload speeds to about 5mbps download and 1 mbps upload, however when opening a game on literally any other platform such as origin launcher (apex legends) epic games store(Fortnite) or even blizzards launcher(black ops 4) the speedtest returns with speeds closer to 80-90mbps for both download and upload.

also with any steam game open my internet speeds stay slowed but with any other game open (like apex legends or Fortnite) the internet takes much less of a hit.

i understand that with games running and using bandwidth there is bound to be a slowing of internet speed however running steam games completely destroys my internet speeds while running any other game not on steam doesnt

also ive made sure all of my drivers are up to date and that there are no 3rd party services running in the background using up bandwidth. the issue quite clearly occurs the exact moment any steam game launches

Then try this, you can opt into beta by clicking on Steam to top left of the client, click setting, click on change button, and opt in for beta, and test.

If still not working, try disabling Steam overlay in the Steam settings.

If not working, then next option is to reinstall Steam, move the "Steamapp" folder to a safe place, then uninstall, make sure the Steam folder is gone, if not delete it, then reinstall Steam, place back the Steamapp folder, and test.

Let us know how that reacts to you.

Also what games by any chance?

[Chill-Out-Zone]

Have you Been in steam option and change to enable download under games? Lol

[Big_Man1986]

Ive spent the last day trying out all of these suggestions. i spent a few hours looking up and going through tutorials on making sure there was no firewall issues, i rolled back drivers, i re-updated drivers, i changed all of the relevant in-game and download settings that steam has to offer, i uninstalled and reinstalled steam and then went back through all of the settings once more and nothing has changed it.

i did install dishonored which doesnt have a multiplayer, and like expected it did not cause any issues to my internet speeds with, or wthout the steam ingame overlay on. this leads me to believe the ingame overlay isnt an issue.

the games that i own and play the most are csgo, pubg, dota2, and dota underworlds and just launching each of them causes the same exact result to my internet speeds. However i started a speedtest with one of the games open and then proceeded to close it part way through the speed test and instantaneously my internet speed came back mid test

so it would seem that something about starting a multiplayer game on steam causes it to limit the bandwidth available to the rest of my computer by a substantial margin (one that is ridiculous compared to the amount of bandwidth used while launching ,and playing, every other multiplayer game i own thats not on steam such as LoL, apex legends, fortnite, dauntless.)

My major question is that, is this something on the side of each individual game, or apart of steam software that purposely allocates itself the vast majority of whatever bandwidth is available.

also though when i have a game open i noticed there is nothing in task manager or resource monitor that looks like it is taking up anything more than a negligible amount of my bandwidth, for instance with csgo open csgo takes 0.3Mbps steam client bootstrapper takes 0.1 Mbps, (then randomly in the background my system or dns client will also take up 0.1 Mbps which is usual).

because it is clear that my internet should still be fast with the games running could this be a windows thing that heavily throttles all other apps while a game is open and if so why is it only doing it for steam games and not anything else.

sorry for the length of this but ive spent hours on this and cant for the life of me figure it out so any help is greatly appreciated.

[BalleBonk]

This also happens to me, I don't know how to solve and it's a big problem for those who have it. Have you fixed it yet?

[Krodyo]

I have the exact same issue and need help with this too, I have spent hours trying to find an answer but nothing sticks out or makes a difference. Opening The Forest or any other game on steam to play with friends for my stream instantly kills my 10 mbps upload speed down to .02 mbps however non steam games run fine. I have also tried reinstalling steam to no avail.

[Big_Man1986]

ive been playing on a lenovo gaming laptop and i found that my issue was a network priority limiter that starts if it detects me playing a game. although the software to turn this setting on and off isnt pre installed on the computer the network limiter comes built in by default. the app I found was called lenovo nerve center and after downloading it and turning off the network priority feature I havent had the issue again. if you arent on a lenovo machine however i have read that alot of computers by default have feature like this, for instance windows has game focus feature that does the same thing so its worth while to check around your pc's settings and find if there is a network priority setting and make sure it is turned off. and it seemed like the only reason it wasnt limiting my internet while playing other games is because the application was only recognizing steam applications as games and not other third party games like apex legends. so if youre having this problem mostly with playing steam games id assume its a network priority "gaming" feature. like i said though i didnt have access to the software to turn off this feature until i downloaded a completely different app so the setting might be hard to find

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Glad you were able to resolve your issue.

[Krodyo]

引用自 Excisus：

ive been playing on a lenovo gaming laptop and i found that my issue was a network priority limiter that starts if it detects me playing a game. although the software to turn this setting on and off isnt pre installed on the computer the network limiter comes built in by default. the app I found was called lenovo nerve center and after downloading it and turning off the network priority feature I havent had the issue again. if you arent on a lenovo machine however i have read that alot of computers by default have feature like this, for instance windows has game focus feature that does the same thing so its worth while to check around your pc's settings and find if there is a network priority setting and make sure it is turned off. and it seemed like the only reason it wasnt limiting my internet while playing other games is because the application was only recognizing steam applications as games and not other third party games like apex legends. so if youre having this problem mostly with playing steam games id assume its a network priority "gaming" feature. like i said though i didnt have access to the software to turn off this feature until i downloaded a completely different app so the setting might be hard to find

Yep I have a lenovo gaming laptop too, thank you so much for the reply and help, thought I was gonna go insane

[BalleBonk]

I fixed it. There is a program called Lenovo Vantage, and I think I accidentally turned network priority on.

[Matt Warren]

引用自 Excisus：

ive been playing on a lenovo gaming laptop and i found that my issue was a network priority limiter that starts if it detects me playing a game. although the software to turn this setting on and off isnt pre installed on the computer the network limiter comes built in by default. the app I found was called lenovo nerve center and after downloading it and turning off the network priority feature I havent had the issue again. if you arent on a lenovo machine however i have read that alot of computers by default have feature like this, for instance windows has game focus feature that does the same thing so its worth while to check around your pc's settings and find if there is a network priority setting and make sure it is turned off. and it seemed like the only reason it wasnt limiting my internet while playing other games is because the application was only recognizing steam applications as games and not other third party games like apex legends. so if youre having this problem mostly with playing steam games id assume its a network priority "gaming" feature. like i said though i didnt have access to the software to turn off this feature until i downloaded a completely different app so the setting might be hard to find

Oh good resolve because app lenovo nerve center network priority