Base 'Estimated download time' on the user's download speed

[Muut]

When you click a game in the library and choose to install, Steam displays a handy popup that tells you:

- The install location.
- The size of the game data.
- The estimated download time, in hours and minutes, at a speed which is unrelated to your download speed.

For example, If I choose to install Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, I'm told that it will take almost six hours to download at "2MB/s". My download speed is 70-80mbit, so a more realistic estimate would be somewhere around an hour and a half. There's quite a difference when you're planning to know when you can sit down and see how far you can get without it crashing again (but I digress..).

I've seen posts about this issue going back years in various places, but I can't remember the estimate ever having been anything approaching accurate for me since I first installed Steam to load up that new game about portals.

My suggestion is therefore to either:

- Allow the download speed to be set as a preference (in doing so, I'm sure most users would be happy to accept some inaccuracy based on their input if they don't happen to achieve the throughput that they'd anticipated).

or

- Base the download speed on an average of recorded download speeds.

or

- Just remove the estimate, as it's currently on a similar level of usefulness as "This potato would cost you 1.74% of your weekly income if you earned [some amount different to what you earn] a week."

(Or unless it's sometimes accurate for some people? Or maybe there's already some XML file or account preference buried somewhere that allows the speed to be set?)

[Muut]

引用自 Gwarsbane：

I would give people credit, if it wasn't for the people posting here, many times, that complain about the estimated time to downloading always being wrong and always changing.,

The only posts I can find on a search for "download estimate" are many pages of people noting that the estimate is based on an unchangeable line speed that has no relation to reality, so is wildly inaccurate (which was the point of my original post!)

I don't think anybody's asking for guarantees or even pinpoint accuracy here, just a feature that isn't almost always wrong.

[Gwarsbane]

引用自 Muut：

引用自 Gwarsbane：

I would give people credit, if it wasn't for the people posting here, many times, that complain about the estimated time to downloading always being wrong and always changing.,

The only posts I can find on a search for "download estimate" are many pages of people noting that the estimate is based on an unchangeable line speed that has no relation to reality, so is wildly inaccurate (which was the point of my original post!)

I don't think anybody's asking for guarantees or even pinpoint accuracy here, just a feature that isn't almost always wrong.

One last time....

What you want is pointless because people will still complain that its not accurate. The speed will keep jumping up and down as its downloading and people will scream "it said this time before I started downloading but it took longer, make it accurate!!!!!!"

Till the download speeds can remain constant, which is not something thats going to happen any time soon, making it based off of what ever you say for speed is pointless programming time.

Just start downloading it, see what it says, go by that.... wait a few seconds once the speed changes... go by that... wait a few more seconds when the speed changes again.... go by that.... rinse and repeat.

If it says its a long time download it, start it before you go to bed, hope that its done before you wake up, don't care about the speed as Valve will download as fast as you have set it or as fast as your internet can handle it.


So let me cover what you have asked for....

The current estimated download rate is wildly inaccurate, you want it changed to what ever you set the speed for.... which will be wildly inaccurate, you and others will keep complaining that its wildly inaccurate.

What does Valve get out of changing it? Nothing, people will still complain its wildly inaccurate. There is no reason for Valve to bother changing it. Just start downloading, see what it says, take what it says with a bag of salt and wait till its done and just play the game.

Goodbye, I'm done with this topic as its a pointless request that will not actually stop people from complaining about how inaccurate it it because people don't understand how unstable the internet is and that the hamsters running the wheels to keep things going get tired and slow down then speed up once they catch their breath.

[Muut]

引用自 Gwarsbane：

What you want is pointless because people will still complain that its not accurate [...] people will scream [...]

Per my last post, this nebulous demographic who keep complaining about whatever serves an argument against fixing this feature are very under-represented by comparison to those noting that the feature is broken because there's no control over the line speed used for the estimation.

引用自 Gwarsbane：

Till the download speeds can remain constant, which is not something thats going to happen any time soon, making it based off of what ever you say for speed is pointless programming time.

I think you're missing that if the estimation speed is set by the user, they're going to be well aware that the estimate is only as accurate as what they've set it to (which will be a lot more accurate than it is currently).

引用自 Gwarsbane：

If it says its a long time download it, start it before you go to bed, hope that its done before you wake up, don't care about the speed as Valve will download as fast as you have set it or as fast as your internet can handle it.

Sure, and when your watch breaks you don't fix it because who needs one, right?

引用自 Gwarsbane：

you want it changed to what ever you set the speed for.... which will be wildly inaccurate, you and others will keep complaining that its wildly inaccurate.

I'd like not to be dragged into this demographic of yours, thanks ;)

引用自 Gwarsbane：

What does Valve get out of changing it?

A working feature, less people complaining on the forums that the feature is broken because it uses a line speed that it pulled out of a hat, and universal adoration for building such a flawlessly-implemented game client.

引用自 Gwarsbane：

[,,,] hamsters [...]

Always.

[Edifier]

引用自 Muut：

I think you're missing that if the estimation speed is set by the user, they're going to be well aware that the estimate is only as accurate as what they've set it to (which will be a lot more accurate than it is currently).

What if you set your download speed to 500 KB/s and for some reason it only downloads in 250 KB/s. Now the ETA will be twice what you think it'll be.

But if you go by the current system you would see the estimate based on the current speed. Which would be more accurate than what you want.

引用自 Muut：

Sure, and when your watch breaks you don't fix it because who needs one, right?

Except the ETA for download speed isn't broken in any kind of way. It estimate how long it'll take at the current speed that it's going in. If something later on causes problems it's something the download ETA timer could ever predict. Unless it could literally read the future.

引用自 Muut：

A working feature, less people complaining on the forums that the feature is broken because it uses a line speed that it pulled out of a hat, and universal adoration for building such a flawlessly-implemented game client.

You're the only one complaining about this. I can't remember if anyone else has made a topic about this in the past 10 years.

The ETA from the download speed isn't pulled out of a hat. It's based on the size of the file and the speed you download in. Much like any other file transfer speed counter.

Your suggestion would be akin to pulling the number out of the hat because it'd only be accurate if you had the same speed at all times. But then again you'd get the same ETA on the current download speed if you had the same speed.

[Lord]

引用自 Monkey：

If you want something accurate to you max speed/Download limit/speed cap just use any of the various online calculators. First result I found

https://www.download-time.com/

Valve won't do it because if it takes longer that it says users would start complaining. For it to be 100% accurate everything needs to go perfect from Steams servers > Third party networks > users network and computer.

At any point through that process things can happen to slow the download speed.The majority would be outside of Steam servers.

[Muut]

引用自 Edifier：

It's based on the [...] speed you download in. Much like any other file transfer speed counter.

That would be ideal if it was true, but it's not. Good for you if you're getting correct estimates, but mine don't reflect the speed at which Steam downloads actually run for me, and judging by the posts of others it's the same case for them too.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Mine used to say, 1MB/s, yesterday was 13MB/s before the hardware survey was submitted and 44MB/s today after the survey. Still not close to my 1gb speeds.

But I don't really look at estimated times since they were never correct, anywhere.

[Edifier]

引用自 Muut：

引用自 Edifier：

It's based on the [...] speed you download in. Much like any other file transfer speed counter.

That would be ideal if it was true, but it's not. Good for you if you're getting correct estimates, but mine don't reflect the speed at which Steam downloads actually run for me, and judging by the posts of others it's the same case for them too.

If your speeds jumps around so erratically that the normal download timer isn't showing the right eta then a fixed eta won't ever be right for you.

Also can you prove that it shows the wrong eta?