Games download way slower on steam than any other platform

[Awlorein]

Hello,
I have tried everything I can think of for a fix. My internet is wired, average 60mb/s on both Epic Games, EA app and XBox app, however steam often drops and constantly fluctuates between 0MB/S to 9-20MB/S. A game is taking HOURS to install on steam, meanwhile it takes around 20-30 minutes on another platform. The reason I want to install it on Steam, btw, is because I want to make use of the Workshop mods.

I cannot find ANY help online that doesn't boil down to "Change these couple settings in Steam" to "your internet is just slow or there's a problem" which it isn't, considering other apps have no problem downloading the very same game (and to the same harddrive).

Incidentally I have always had this issue on Steam and I am starting to wonder if it is just a Steam issue and there is nothing I can do about it or not. Please dear god help me I am losing my mind.

[MancSoulja]

Steam downloads their games completely differently to other platforms,

Steam's downloads are archived in packages, they're downloaded, decompressed and moved all on the fly, this means that to achieve fast download speeds on Steam, you don't just need fast internet, you also need fast storage and a strong CPU so it can churn through all that unpacking.

When your download speed drops to 0, most of the time, it's because Steam is waiting for your PC to finish dealing with the last archive before it downloads the rest.

[Supafly]

^ that

While you download open task manager and look at the usage % for you CPU and drive when download speeds slow. If they are near or at 100% that's your issue. If CPU/drive is too busy to download and write more data downloads will slow and may even stop

[esteban]

I have gigabit internet, a 5950x, and NVMe drives, and I still get insanely slow download speeds. Nothing is throttled in the settings, and the download cache is cleared, so it's definitely a Steam issue.

[Supafly]

Try changing download regions

[phillyellico]

Originally posted by esteban:

I have gigabit internet, a 5950x, and NVMe drives, and I still get insanely slow download speeds. Nothing is throttled in the settings, and the download cache is cleared, so it's definitely a Steam issue.

Yeah I checked performance during download and my CPU (5800x3D) sitting at 13% usage with nvme at 30% usage and my internet is at about 200mb/s and steam is downloading at 15-19mb/s

[sehawley1288]

I have the same issues...I have a great computer, the best internet I can get (super fast on everything else), and I have tried absolutely everything to get it to go faster but, it averages 14 mbps, and if I'm lucky it maxes out in the 30s. Steam! Be better! EPIC downloads games in about a quarter of the time it takes your software for some reason. It's pretty sad.

[dimonic]

I wish I could get 15+. Stuck at 10 here, with 50 on speedtest, and my CPU is 8700x3d, 32GB and NVME storage. Tried Toronto and Detroit. Same speed.

[trogwolf]

This is why I prefer Gog when I have a choice. Bring back games on discs.

[Spektickal]

Ok so while getting better hardware will always yield better results, this is far from the answer as most people with this problem have good hardware already.

I came across a guy on reddit who told me to set a download limit slightly higher than what I should theoretically be capable of with my connection. Mind you our connections are measured in megabits and Steam downloads are megabytes with their download limiter using kilobytes, so make the correct conversions.

I pay for 800mbps but I often reach closer to 1gig, so I set my download limit to 1gig plus 1 kilobyte just to be sure haha.

1gig = 1000mbps = 125MBps = 125000KBps. I set download limit to 125001KBps.

My speeds went from hitting low teens to easily 100MBps immediately and my disk usage speeds shot up as well.

Try this out, you're welcome!

[Supafly]

Originally posted by Spektickal:

Ok so while getting better hardware will always yield better results, this is far from the answer as most people with this problem have good hardware already.

I came across a guy on reddit who told me to set a download limit slightly higher than what I should theoretically be capable of with my connection. Mind you our connections are measured in megabits and Steam downloads are megabytes with their download limiter using kilobytes, so make the correct conversions.

I pay for 800mbps but I often reach closer to 1gig, so I set my download limit to 1gig plus 1 kilobyte just to be sure haha.

1gig = 1000mbps = 125MBps = 125000KBps. I set download limit to 125001KBps.

My speeds went from hitting low teens to easily 100MBps immediately and my disk usage speeds shot up as well.

Try this out, you're welcome!

Or just don't set a limit..

[Mike]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.