Downloads are Choppy and Disk Usage Becomes 100%

[v1ncere]

In the past weeks, I've been struggling to update or install games on my computer via Steam. The download usually starts at the max MB my internet can provide but then in throttles and then goes to 0 Mb/s then goes up a little then throttles again. I opened my task manager to see what's happening. When I download games from Steam, it is expected that its disk usage is high but then I looked at my task manager, the "System" using the disk more than Steam.

I compared this to other game launchers like Epic Games or Origin but they don't throttle like Steam does. Yes, the disk usage is still at 100% but the "System" usage is way lower when compared the Epic or Origin.

I've been really frustrated trying to fix this. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!!!

[Sazzouu]

First of all a Disk Usage of 100% during installations is a good thing. It basically means the content is present and your drive can use its full potential on writing / installing the stuff needed.

Secondly depending on the way the developers built their gamefiles and made use of the Steam Downloading Pipeline the download is done chunkwise. So you download one chunk at your full internet speed (which is most likely faster than the reads and writes than your drives) and then it installs this unpacks / installs this chunk. That is the point where you hit 0MB/s in downloads but your drive maxes out.

After installing a chunk it goes back to the top.

[v1ncere]

Originally posted by Sazzouu:

First of all a Disk Usage of 100% during installations is a good thing. It basically means the content is present and your drive can use its full potential on writing / installing the stuff needed.

Secondly depending on the way the developers built their gamefiles and made use of the Steam Downloading Pipeline the download is done chunkwise. So you download one chunk at your full internet speed (which is most likely faster than the reads and writes than your drives) and then it installs this unpacks / installs this chunk. That is the point where you hit 0MB/s in downloads but your drive maxes out.

After installing a chunk it goes back to the top.

Yep, I understand that 100% disk usage is great but when the download speed throttles, even the "disk usage" line in the steam download manager goes to 0 bytes. I really don't know what's happening. It's not downloading and it's not installing?

Thank you for your response though!