Steam Bandwidth Sucks

[TRUCK]

Why do Steam downloads suck so bad? I checked the options and I do not have a limit on bandwidth usage in the app.

I have broadband internet and can download files that are several GB from other places in a few mins, but every time I need to download a game on Steam it takes HOURS. I've been downloading Forza for 7+ hours now. That's absolutely ridiculous.

I can download a 50 GB file from the cloud in just about 30 mins, but 100 GB from Steam takes over 7 hours and it still says 1+ hour remaining. This happens on other games I've downloaded as well.

One of the YouTube streamers said it took him 5 hours to download the game. I don't see how that's acceptable. It's like Steam just doesn't have the bandwidth to serve large downloads.

It shouldn't take me an ENTIRE day just to download one game. World of Warcraft was about 75 GB and that took me just over 1.5 hours to download after I reinstalled Windows. 7+ hours later Steam is still chugging away on Forza.

[Mad Scientist]

Steam downloads are encrypted/compressed, so download speed is 1 of 3 major factors for download speed. Additionally, you can select any download region if you feel the server is busy or downloading too slowly. Second is disk speed, third is CPU. As stated, downloads are often encrypted/compressed, thus CPU processing power is required to unpackage downloads, so the weaker the CPU, the longer the process will take.

Learn how each service is different and you'll never complain. Get informed on matters, be patient. It's acceptable, plus a youtuber is not likely going to have the same speeds as you. That game would likely take 30-45 minutes for me at the most if it's the 4th Forza.

Use a different download server, or get stronger hardware that can handle such demands. Else,

be patient

It's a first world issue.

[Zoxard]

try downloading any game on my computer or gmod addons on my ♥♥♥♥♥♥ refurbished non-gaming laptop ha, ha..... ha...... ):

[Cathulhu]

Steam easily saturates my 100 Megabit connection. Actually, i get a tiny bit more:
https://i.imgur.com/l2yEF19.png
Keep in mind that 100 Megabit = 12.5 Megabyte

I am doing this right now.

[_I_]

drive and cpu is often the slow point when downloading/installing steam games
it downloads compressed files that need to be decompressed and copied

fast drive and cpu will speed things up alot

[reg1s7]

Try changing download regions, preferable to ones that are on non-busy times.

[Sazzouu]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2606907096

30GBs in 6 Minutes (= 100GBs in roughly 20 Minutes)

[Runkel]

Originally posted by DankBeard:

Why do Steam downloads suck so bad? I checked the options and I do not have a limit on bandwidth usage in the app.

I have broadband internet and can download files that are several GB from other places in a few mins, but every time I need to download a game on Steam it takes HOURS. I've been downloading Forza for 7+ hours now. That's absolutely ridiculous.

I can download a 50 GB file from the cloud in just about 30 mins, but 100 GB from Steam takes over 7 hours and it still says 1+ hour remaining. This happens on other games I've downloaded as well.

One of the YouTube streamers said it took him 5 hours to download the game. I don't see how that's acceptable. It's like Steam just doesn't have the bandwidth to serve large downloads.

It shouldn't take me an ENTIRE day just to download one game. World of Warcraft was about 75 GB and that took me just over 1.5 hours to download after I reinstalled Windows. 7+ hours later Steam is still chugging away on Forza.

It's not Steam, it's on your end

Looks fine to me

https://i.imgur.com/uWJA95A.png

[[N]ebsun]

I get 110 - 120 MB/s from the local Steam server. 1 gigabit speed.
Doesn't seem to be a Steam issue here

[Sazzouu]

Originally posted by Lord Sir Dr. Santa Nebsun:

Doesn't seem to be a Steam issue here

It never is...
Linus Tech Tips once benchmarked the download speeds on Steam with a 10Gbit/s connection. It was (almost) fully satisfied by Steam.

EDIT: rewatched it. They maxed out at around 3Gbit/s mainly limited by their local hardware rather than the download servers themselves

[crunchyfrog]

OP that's because you misunderstand how it all works.

It's quite common mind. It's easy to look at other services and see better results and think there's something wrong. But here's the kicker - STEAM WORKS DIFFERENTLY.

Downloads are both encrypted and compressed. So this means that downloads will be smaller in most cases, but they will need resources to do the decryption and uncompression on the fly. Namely, your CPU, I/O, Hard drive and so on. If any of those are a weak link, then it WILL drastically bottleneck.

You can check this by going to the downloads page while you're downloading and look at the graph as to what is happening. You will likely see that your hard drive or something else is maximing out, which means that will limit your speed.

Also, learn to do the region dance. People also commonly make the mistake of thinking it's like online gaming - IT ISN'T. Ping is not relevant, so you absolutely do not need to choose the closest server to you, in fact that can be the worst solution. If your local region is busy and people are downlading, then it's highly likely your neighbouring regions will be in the same boat too. The trick to do is to google timezones. Find anywhere in the world that is currently in the wee hours of the morning, and pick them. If you notice no increase at all, then it refle3cts the fact that it may be something with your hardware.

Lastly, don't forget the final thing - by default, steam reports in MEGABYTES per second on the downloads page, not MEGABITS, so you'd need to multiply that number by 8 to get the "usual" speed.

[TRUCK]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

You can check this by going to the downloads page while you're downloading and look at the graph as to what is happening. You will likely see that your hard drive or something else is maximing out, which means that will limit your speed.

OK then it looks like the graph for the hard drive is at the top. I'm going to get an SSD then. Can you recommend one that works good? I need at least 2TB.

[Mad Scientist]

Originally posted by DankBeard:

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

You can check this by going to the downloads page while you're downloading and look at the graph as to what is happening. You will likely see that your hard drive or something else is maximing out, which means that will limit your speed.

OK then it looks like the graph for the hard drive is at the top. I'm going to get an SSD then. Can you recommend one that works good? I need at least 2TB.

Look at the percentage not the graph. Most disks have a very high Read/Write rate these days. Additionally, Steam downloads are highly CPU Dependent.

What CPU are you using and what % is it at while downloading through Steam?

[TRUCK]

Originally posted by Mr. Gentlebot:

Originally posted by DankBeard:

OK then it looks like the graph for the hard drive is at the top. I'm going to get an SSD then. Can you recommend one that works good? I need at least 2TB.

Look at the percentage not the graph. Most disks have a very high Read/Write rate these days. Additionally, Steam downloads are highly CPU Dependent.

What CPU are you using and what % is it at while downloading through Steam?

i5-9400F 2.90GHz 6 CPU
32 GB DDR4

It's at 8% downloading NASCAR 5

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by DankBeard:

Originally posted by Mr. Gentlebot:

Look at the percentage not the graph. Most disks have a very high Read/Write rate these days. Additionally, Steam downloads are highly CPU Dependent.

What CPU are you using and what % is it at while downloading through Steam?

i5-9400F 2.90GHz 6 CPU
32 GB DDR4

It's at 8% downloading NASCAR 5

Yes, I should have mentioned earlier don't just look at that graph. Use Task Manager too to get an idea of what is getting up there as far as usage goes.

That will give you a better picture of what is going on, together.

As far as if you do get an SSD (assuming it does bear out it's your hard drive that's an issue - which I'd be a bit surprised at as I use a mediocre laptop with USB external drives fine) then take your pick as far as drives go. Find one, and just google if it performs OK. Far too many out here for me to give any recommendations.

[Coffee]

Probably because it's compressed af and it has to give time for you lil PC to unpack!