Is download speed capped?

[Kryptika]

I am fortunate to have fibre optic lines into my house and can get up to 36MB download speed... however every time I want to download from steam I can never get more than 4.7MB in speed? Is this a setting on Steam's side?

[Omega]

Steam does not cap the download speed.

I can max my internet and download at 25MB/s. I have seen people download close to 1Gbit even.

Most likely someone in between you and the Steam download servers is to blame.

[Brujeira]

I wonder if the OP is misreading units and their download speed is actually 36mbps... 8 x 4.7 is roughly 36...

That low speed would be unusual for FTTP but...

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by Kryptika:

Is download speed capped?

No...

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1620992612

Try all download servers until you find one with speeds you are happy with. Any server near me was slow as dirt. Nearest does not always equal faster.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9498-WPDF-3220

[Omega]

Yes. If by "my house and can get up to 36MB download speed" you mean your ISP says you can get 36Mb then your download speed is about right.

ISPs always talk about megabits (Mb), Steam by default reports (Like pretty much everything else) download speed in megabytes (MB). 1 megabyte = 8 megabit.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Steam > Settings > Downloads >>> Display download rates in bits per second

[-=SOF=-WID99]

see https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9498-WPDF-3220

[DevaVictrix]

No experience of capping here either. Steam has always had the best download speeds that i've experienced.

Playstation, incidentally, has the worst. My girlfriend spent about an hour downloading 16GB yesterday.

Omega... I think you got your bits mixed up with your bytes :-) 8 bits to a byte so 1 megabyte = 8 megabit.

What confuses me is that I have a 150Mb connection and Steam tells me I'm downloading at 20.5MB/s whenever I download something.

EDIT: That link kinda explains it for me! Thank you!

[_I_]

steam will download as fast as the hdd or isp will allow

psn is slow because of the consoles slow hdd and service based in japan

mb =/= MB
you can change steams download settings to show in bits instead of bytes

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Also consoles will download alot slower via wifi, period, plug them into a Wired connection if u can

Just leave steam show MB instead of Mbit, so it's relative to what you see there for drive write speed

If you download to a hdd via something like Steam, that's a major reason for it being slow, get an ssd or a faster game hdd, like WD black/red/gold, or perhaps Seagate IronWolf

Please share some results from SpeedTest.net