Downloads pause more than expected - solutions?

[c-*****]

Hi all,

Is it true that Steam stops downloading if anything else is going on? It is pretty annoying!

I've been trying to install a couple games because of their limited free-play time, but it looks like downloads stop whenever I'm playing another Steam game and I can't do any simultaneous downloads - I thought I could earlier this year.

Is there any way to speed this up? Can I order a blu-ray of game files so Steam stops wasting my time? I think that'd go much faster than as long as it takes over the wire (U.S. Internet speeds... it displayed 400+KB/s a couple times, but more typically 150KB/s)

ANY alternatives appreciated!

[silly]

Steam pauses downloads upon launching a game in order to prevent interference with connection quality that the game may need.
If you wish to bypass this feature, press Alt+Tab (or Command+Tab for Mac users) to minimize the game and return to the Steam client.
Under the Library tab, select Downloads from the drop-down menu and click the "Resume All" button. This will have all downloads continue downloading.
[NOTE: If you wish to only continue an individual download, you may click the Resume button for that title located in the bottom right-hand corner of the title's download bar.]

[c-*****]

Uh... Steam doesn't know if a game uses the internet or not, so it disables the internet just in case? Just in case it has Steam achievements which need updating? (and I don't even care about those)

Please: is there anyone at Steam who thinks this isn't a good idea?

What are the alternatives? Do I have to give up on Steam and try torrents to get games faster than Steam can deliver?

[silly]

err, how about you either do what i said or just wait untill the games are downloaded. It's a good idea because if you are playing an online game your internet will not slow down.

If you can very unhappy about your speed you can try change your download server and restart steam, see if that helps. Check http://store.steampowered.com/stats/content/ to help pick a server.

[c-*****]

Huh? It sounds like you don't understand the actual issue here. Or you've got a damn-sight more extra time and patience than the majority of people.

[rant]
Being forbidden from playing Steam games so that Steam can download games is patently insane. Especially when I don't play any online games.

Steam should stop downloading games the rest of the time because I want to watch Netflix and listen to Pandora and it shouldn't dare to interfere with that internet use either.

The whole benefit of Steam was that it can download games in the background while I'm playing something else, and the portability of the games within Steam is gone IF I AM FORBIDDEN FROM USING IT while I have to wait a couple weeks when I make a new computer just to let everything download!!

I don't see how any Steam device would cause anything but frustration for users if they're told up-front that they cannot play ANYTHING if they want a new game to download.
[/rant]

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by c-*****:

Huh? It sounds like you don't understand the actual issue here. Or you've got a damn-sight more extra time and patience than the majority of people.

[rant]
Being forbidden from playing Steam games so that Steam can download games is patently insane. Especially when I don't play any online games.

Steam should stop downloading games the rest of the time because I want to watch Netflix and listen to Pandora and it shouldn't dare to interfere with that internet use either.

The whole benefit of Steam was that it can download games in the background while I'm playing something else, and the portability of the games within Steam is gone IF I AM FORBIDDEN FROM USING IT while I have to wait a couple weeks when I make a new computer just to let everything download!!

I don't see how any Steam device would cause anything but frustration for users if they're told up-front that they cannot play ANYTHING if they want a new game to download.[/rant]

I think you're misunderstanding here. They DON'T stop you playing games while you're downloading. You have FULL control over whether you choose to download them or not while playing another game.

If you're wanting to do both, then of course something's going to suffer - your internet connection is not an infinite resource.

If you have issue with the bandwidth used to download, there are utilities out there if you care to Google.