Ollie Oct 24, 2023 @ 4:13pm
steam download speeds
So i get great network speeds and very low ping in games however when downloading a game in steam i have the problem that it seams to throttle its self. i have gone into settings and turned off the bandwidth limit but not changed.
https://www.speedtest.net/result/15418349538.png
i normally get around 800 up and down on speed tests but through steam i seem to max out at about 100
any reason why this happens and how to fix?
Last edited by Ollie; Oct 24, 2023 @ 4:14pm

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Showing 1-9 of 9 comments
Cathulhu Oct 24, 2023 @ 4:17pm 
8Bit = 1 Byte
Steam uses Byte by default.

So, 100 Megabyte per second = 800 Megabit.

Seems fitting as you said you normally get around 800 Megabit.
Mad Scientist Oct 24, 2023 @ 4:18pm 
If your Steam Client is set to MB/s for the download measurement then this is accurate and nearly maxing your speed. MB/s and Mbps are different by a factor of 8 in favor of MB/s.
cSg|mc-Hotsauce Oct 24, 2023 @ 4:59pm 
ISPs use Mb/s and not MB/s. Steam defaults to MB/s.

Steam > Settings > Downloads >>> Display download rates in bits per second (toggle on)... and that will show you in Mb/s.

:summercat2023:
nullable Oct 24, 2023 @ 5:03pm 
  1. Speed/bandwidth is often measured in bits.
  2. Usage (downloads) is typically measured in bytes.


For #1 this is just the long staging standard, bandwidth was so small in the early days that describing it in bytes might not have made sense. Or just wasn't appealing from a marketing standpoint and this has carried on for decades now. Good luck picking a day for the whole world to change over.

Back in the day I had 56kilobit dialup, later on I got DSL 128/768 kilobits up and down, then cable with megabit speeds. Now I'm running 40 megabits up, ~930 megabits down. I can upload at about 5 megabytes per second or download about 116.5 megabytes per second.

Downloads are in bytes, so my download speed is typically connection speed in bits / 8.

And generally when someone isn't explicit about bits and bytes when they express confusion about the performance disparity they perceive it's because they don't know about bits versus bytes and when they're used.

Yeah, it's clunky, and cumbersome, and not always intuitive. Lots of people get tripped up by it. Having to do random math in your head for no reason good reason, or because of decades of velocity behind marketing, it's bound to cause issues, sometimes.
Last edited by nullable; Oct 24, 2023 @ 5:06pm
Ollie Oct 24, 2023 @ 5:25pm 
thanks for the replys but i have it set to mbps wich is the same for the network test, just left a game to download for an hour and only completed around 8gb in an hour, where as in the past i have downloaded the entirety of ark in that time
Last edited by Ollie; Oct 24, 2023 @ 5:27pm
nullable Oct 24, 2023 @ 6:14pm 
Originally posted by Ollie:
thanks for the replys but i have it set to mbps wich is the same for the network test, just left a game to download for an hour and only completed around 8gb in an hour, where as in the past i have downloaded the entirety of ark in that time


See again the problem is "mbps" is ambiguous. And MBps and Mbps are two different things, the case of the B defines (b)its or (B)ytes. The setting in Steam is a toggle which enabled displays bits, instead of bytes. If you're sure that's not enabled and it's displaying bytes that fine. It clears one detail up.

At any rate, 8GB an hour would suggest a download speed of about 2MBps which is significantly less than what 800Mbps can get you. You could try a different download region, or there could be an issue with your ISP, or an issue anywhere along the way between you and Steam. Are you sure you don't have your speed throttled?

8GB * 1024 / 60 (minutes) / 60 (seconds) = 2.28MBps * 8 = 18.2 Mbps
Last edited by nullable; Oct 24, 2023 @ 6:18pm
Ollie Oct 24, 2023 @ 7:17pm 
Originally posted by nullable:
Originally posted by Ollie:
thanks for the replys but i have it set to mbps wich is the same for the network test, just left a game to download for an hour and only completed around 8gb in an hour, where as in the past i have downloaded the entirety of ark in that time


See again the problem is "mbps" is ambiguous. And MBps and Mbps are two different things, the case of the B defines (b)its or (B)ytes. The setting in Steam is a toggle which enabled displays bits, instead of bytes. If you're sure that's not enabled and it's displaying bytes that fine. It clears one detail up.

At any rate, 8GB an hour would suggest a download speed of about 2MBps which is significantly less than what 800Mbps can get you. You could try a different download region, or there could be an issue with your ISP, or an issue anywhere along the way between you and Steam. Are you sure you don't have your speed throttled?

8GB * 1024 / 60 (minutes) / 60 (seconds) = 2.28MBps * 8 = 18.2 Mbps


thankyou, ive got both set to bits, ive changed the server loacation but talked to a mate and he recons its cus my harddrive is just really old.
nullable Oct 24, 2023 @ 7:23pm 
Could be, poor disk performance can effectively limit your download speed the way Steam works. However if you used to get a certain level of performance, and suddenly things are really slow I don't know I'd attribute that to an old HDD per se. You could test that by running some Crystal Disk benchmarks. I'd also consider trying a different region. At the moment it seems like the issue is your speed is slower than expected, but the cause is unknown.
Ollie Oct 24, 2023 @ 7:49pm 
Originally posted by nullable:
Could be, poor disk performance can effectively limit your download speed the way Steam works. However if you used to get a certain level of performance, and suddenly things are really slow I don't know I'd attribute that to an old HDD per se. You could test that by running some Crystal Disk benchmarks. I'd also consider trying a different region. At the moment it seems like the issue is your speed is slower than expected, but the cause is unknown.
cheers, ill try that
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Date Posted: Oct 24, 2023 @ 4:13pm
Posts: 9