Applying Steam's "Limit Downloads to a Certain Time" system to Workshop downloads

[SpaceKGreen]

When the update for Steam came that let you limit when it downloads to a certain time of the day, my family was overjoyed. Our internet (with the only provider available) has a 475 MB download limit per 24 hour period, with a short time between 11 PM and 4 AM (UTC -08:00) where the limit doesn't apply. With the new system, we could actually have Steam online more often, without having to worry about a game update happening in the background and breaking our limit.

However, I've noticed that this system does not apply to Workshop updates and downloads, which still happen at arbitrary times. Considering that some of us have Skyrim and Garry's mod workshop items that update frequently and take anywhere from 40 MB to 140 MB, this is still a bit of a problem.

Might I suggest that the option to limit automatic updates to a certain time period also apply to Steam Workshop downloads?

[Sparkling Homonculus]

I'm actually surprised that this isn't a think already, I'm simply guessing it's something Valve overlooked.

[rettshift]

I'm not that familiar with Garry's Mod, but Skyrim mods update when you run the game. Also, you can play the game and skip the updates just by clicking "Play" while it is still checking for updates. That will very much limit your Skyrim Steam Workshops mods downloads.

[SpaceKGreen]

Originally posted by graywolfe42:

I'm not that familiar with Garry's Mod, but Skyrim mods update when you run the game. Also, you can play the game and skip the updates just by clicking "Play" while it is still checking for updates. That will very much limit your Skyrim Steam Workshops mods downloads.

Skyrim and Garry's Mod workshop mods show up as separate downloads in Steam's "Downloads" screen, in their own little section, at least for me. Starting Skyrim also updates the mods; the separate download just seems to store the updates on my computer so that the launcher doesn't have to download them from the workshop.

It's these separate downloads that ignore the current "only install during this time period" setting.

http://i.imgur.com/34yu2F7.png

The linked image is an example; this happened just now, and it's nowhere near the time period I set. At least I paused them in time.

[rettshift]

Ah well if they are going through Steams downloader then ya they should be part of it's limits. this is possibly a bug.

Sorry for my misunderstanding, I have only ever used the workshop for skyrim and I've never seen it in my downloads, but my few mods also haven't updated in quite awhile.

[aiusepsi]

Workshop content is downloaded by a separate system to the system for game downloads, which is why it isn't affected by the scheduling or limiting options.

From a user perspective though it's irrelevant how these things are actually implemented, so they should probably try and get the workshop system to obey the same limits, or merge the game and workshop download systems into a single system that does both.