Steam download speed slow please help

[extramayo]

So I have never had this issue before (could be because of covid) but recently my download speeds have been pretty slow on steam and wondering if anyone could help. I'm supposed to get 1GB/s download speeds which when I did a ookla speed test yesterday was (mostly) accurate at about 900MB/s for some reason my internet is slower today at around 250-300MB/s but regardless is much faster than what i'm getting on steam.

Here is proof: https://www.speedtest.net/result/9349177094

Yet on steam my download is only around 15MB/s to 20MB/s and then randomly it will drop to 0 bytes per second and not sure what's going on. I have tried switching my steam server but that just makes it slower, so if you have any suggestions please let me know.

[crunchyfrog]

First off, are you sure you're reading that correctly, because internet speeds are usually quoted in megaBITS per second, yet Steam's downloads page uses megaBYTES per second. In other words, you take that number and multiply it by 8, which gives you at least 125Mb/s).

So, yes it's still slow, but at least it's closer.

And you're correct about coronavirus. The whole world is at home, bored. Steam is being hit HARD. Two weeks ago, when simultaneous users should be around 18 million at any time, they had skyrocketed to over 23 million.

Add to that the fact that many regions in the world have restricted all internet to maintain bandwidth for emergency services and you can see the problem.

As for switching your region, NEVER choose anywhere geographically close to you, as most people do, as that isn't going to solve anything. Think about it - if your region is having trouble, your neighbours are likely to as well.

Choose somewhere in the world that is currently asleep, and try to think of a region which is a bit less populated, and you should notice an improvement.

As for speeds dropping off to zero, yup, that's as intended, as downloads work differently for different games. Some games just go straight through. Others download a chunk, wait and unpack, then download another chunk, and so on.

[extramayo]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

First off, are you sure you're reading that correctly, because internet speeds are usually quoted in megaBITS per second, yet Steam's downloads page uses megaBYTES per second. In other words, you take that number and multiply it by 8, which gives you at least 125Mb/s).

So, yes it's still slow, but at least it's closer.

And you're correct about coronavirus. The whole world is at home, bored. Steam is being hit HARD. Two weeks ago, when simultaneous users should be around 18 million at any time, they had skyrocketed to over 23 million.

Add to that the fact that many regions in the world have restricted all internet to maintain bandwidth for emergency services and you can see the problem.

As for switching your region, NEVER choose anywhere geographically close to you, as most people do, as that isn't going to solve anything. Think about it - if your region is having trouble, your neighbours are likely to as well.

Choose somewhere in the world that is currently asleep, and try to think of a region which is a bit less populated, and you should notice an improvement.

As for speeds dropping off to zero, yup, that's as intended, as downloads work differently for different games. Some games just go straight through. Others download a chunk, wait and unpack, then download another chunk, and so on.

thank you I figured corona had something to do with it and i'll try out the whole region thing

[crunchyfrog]

Yup, have a good play with messing with download regions.

I've been lucky in that I live in boring Lincolnshire, England. It's as dull and flat as can be. The upshot of that is bugger all people live here, so I get consistent internet speeds.

But once I had issues with downloaing during a Summer Sale and ended up getting good results from, of all things, the Arctic server (the one that's iirc, laid on for research assistants doing polar research).

I have no idea if that's up now, but there's TONS to choose from around the world.