does playing a game while downloading a game make it download slower?

[gg]

title

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Everything slows down when more processes are going on at the same time, yes.

[Jerry]

It depends. With games, that are not heavy on ressources, there should be no issue at all. The data transfer rates are usually low enough to have no visible impact either (unless you are surfing on 56k dial up maybe).
However, if you are limited not by your internet speed, but the power of your PC, having something that puts additional load on your drive and CPU has a certain risk to slow things down.

[Satoru]

Steam settings by default pause downloads while you are playing games

It does this because Steam downloads, and especially patching, are both CPU and disk IO intensive. As such you can experience things like

* FPS drops
* Texture pop ins
* Long load times
* Stuttering
* etc

Due to your system being CPU or disk IO starved.

Not you can override this behavior on a per-game basis. however you really SHOULD NOT do this.

[Jerry]

Originally posted by Satoru:

Not you can override this behavior on a per-game basis. however you really SHOULD NOT do this.

You can also change it in the global settings.

Like I said, it depends on which is your limiting factor. Let's take myself as an extreme example: My internet speed is 1000 kbits, while I am running on 4 GB Ram and an SSD drive. There is barely a thinkable constellation, where I push my PC so far towards its limits, that it leaves a visible dent in a Steam download, but does not crash right away.
Many users are on the other end of the spectrum and have their hardware being the main limitation. For those, things may look very different.

[Arby]

Necro, but I have noticed that downloads are drastically slower while gaming on windows 11 than windows 10. Used to download a hundred gigabytes no problem while playing pretty demanding games, but on windows 11 even simple indie games tank my downloads. Been searching for weeks for a setting, option, etc to change, pretty sure its just a feature at this point.

[gg]

Originally posted by Arby:

Necro, but I have noticed that downloads are drastically slower while gaming on windows 11 than windows 10. Used to download a hundred gigabytes no problem while playing pretty demanding games, but on windows 11 even simple indie games tank my downloads. Been searching for weeks for a setting, option, etc to change, pretty sure its just a feature at this point.

windows moment

Just wait like a minute for the download lol, most indie games are small in size.

[crunchyfrog]

Yes and no.

As a general rule anything extra you do on your PC slows it down in some way.

So yes, of course. But it does depend how much and which games.

For example, if you're playing an intensive resource-hungry triple A game, while downloading something largeish, then sure you're going to get an impact that's noticeable.

But if you're playing something more light and indie, that doesn't say, require constant loading of data, then you'll likely only notice it when loading in a new level.

[Iceira]

If you have a patato pc then you will feel it more, but Windows also try its best to adjust to have game lag free while it try to DL, problem is some pc have other bottleneck issue and still get lag in-game because of bad build pc setup. but if you have right build and enough muscle in the pc yout wont even notice it, problem here backfire today what if you are on a 10g network or more, then your pc will not be strong enough unless you have very special highend buiild pc.
and that is very very expensive, not so sure normal ppl will buy such.

the faster wan lines you have the more muscle you need to handle it.

you could say most feel it today, but you cant blaim it on wan lines for that.

go ahead try a 100mb wan limitation and see then your old patato pc can hamdle it, well dont have a 20+ years old pc even that is outdate.


ps.
dont get funny ideas like have limitation on so you can play same time, even disconnect and other side effect like you are to slow or DL start over because you are not fast enough
any server in the world can kick lines that dl 1k/s or whatever value they see fit, is to slow.

[gg]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

Yes and no.

As a general rule anything extra you do on your PC slows it down in some way.

So yes, of course. But it does depend how much and which games.

For example, if you're playing an intensive resource-hungry triple A game, while downloading something largeish, then sure you're going to get an impact that's noticeable.

But if you're playing something more light and indie, that doesn't say, require constant loading of data, then you'll likely only notice it when loading in a new level.

Originally posted by Iceira W10:

If you have a patato pc then you will feel it more, but Windows also try its best to adjust to have game lag free while it try to DL, problem is some pc have other bottleneck issue and still get lag in-game because of bad build pc setup. but if you have right build and enough muscle in the pc yout wont even notice it, problem here backfire today what if you are on a 10g network or more, then your pc will not be strong enough unless you have very special highend buiild pc.
and that is very very expensive, not so sure normal ppl will buy such.

the faster wan lines you have the more muscle you need to handle it.

you could say most feel it today, but you cant blaim it on wan lines for that.

go ahead try a 100mb wan limitation and see then your old patato pc can hamdle it, well dont have a 20+ years old pc even that is outdate.

The question has already been answered. The post was nercro'd.

[Iceira]

We know but the old reply aient right. thats topic is handle so badly and reply with resource aient right either , then you know how pc build is then you see things is not about resoureces its about handle it in the right amont of time.

So i can say just like the other here ppl have no clue or did not tell it right.


And any experience pc user know this. even the above helpers, but to explan every build pc in the world and over time wont fit all here.

i have seen pc with dual board, that wont fit here, sure its old but that is not forgotten.
there are exception in all ways.

[Iceira]

And what prevent you from have a disk in the pc that not use then gaming so you DL goes directly to that disk, as i said this post dont even cover have right understanding on how pc is build setup, and i bet the other helpers here know this. problem is its not even explaned.

In other words, old outdate reply that dont fit topic, and i bet even jerry is not mad over other info same goes with CF

Things and knowledge change and ppl might know better today then old pc build with 2 disk only.

and if you can afford raid in top of this then it change all , as i said, alot of things here dont add up.

[Arby]

Originally posted by Iceira W10:

And what prevent you from have a disk in the pc that not use then gaming so you DL goes directly to that disk, as i said this post dont even cover have right understanding on how pc is build setup, and i bet the other helpers here know this. problem is its not even explaned.

In other words, old outdate reply that dont fit topic, and i bet even jerry is not mad over other info same goes with CF

Things and knowledge change and ppl might know better today then old pc build with 2 disk only.

and if you can afford raid in top of this then it change all , as i said, alot of things here dont add up.

Nah, downloads are tied to CPU my dude. If I play something with the hardware requirements of half life 1 on my D drive, my C drive downloads are still slow. Using the CPU at all seems to murder download speed on windows 11.

Unless... maybe its something to do with Game Mode on windows 11. I'll get back to you.

[Arby]

Yeah it was game mode I think. Turn off gamemode if you get super slow downloads while playing literally anything.