Downloading while playing

[LostManAbroad]

Simple question. Is it possible? When I download a game it usually takes quite a long time because I do not have the fastest of connections. Right now I am wanting to download X3 Terran Conflict and Albion Prelude. Together they are about 16 Gb which will take me pretty much the entire day to download. If I try and play a game though it pauses the download.

Is there any way around this? I find it a total nuisance. Especially as I already had both games on my machine but somehow some of the files got corrupted and my game broke so I am now having to download them all over again.

Is there a way to play and download? I don't even want to play an online game.

[class101 [OLED deck]]

Yes of course you can if you right click the game you are playing in Steam library > Properties > 2nd tab > 2nd dropdown menu, in here by default each games is set to stops any download when that game is running but you can change it to no stop

A common habit is to do that as soon as you install a game, if the game in question is an offline game without internet connexion, it is safe to allow any download in the background for it.

[LostManAbroad]

Oh I could kiss you..........but I won't!! My friend told me ages ago that this was not possible so I just accepted it and quite frankly hated Steam ever since for this reason. I play a lot of games that can be modded and many mods tend to break games so I also spend a lot of time re-installing games. I have probably lost out 50-60 days of gaming in the last year due to having to wait for things to finish downloading. Thank you very much!!

[aiusepsi]

As well as changing the setting on per-game basis you can change the global default from the Steam settings.

[dimes]

I think not

[늑대]

This is Helpfull

[efen3001]

Originally posted by class101:

Yes of course you can if you right click the game you are playing in Steam library > Properties > 2nd tab > 2nd dropdown menu, in here by default each games is set to stops any download when that game is running but you can change it to no stop

A common habit is to do that as soon as you install a game, if the game in question is an offline game without internet connexion, it is safe to allow any download in the background for it.

Thanks, you´re the man!

[La Shomke]

Just minimize game u are playing go to the libary click download and that should be it

[Espada Corta]

Originally posted by class101:

Yes of course you can if you right click the game you are playing in Steam library > Properties > 2nd tab > 2nd dropdown menu, in here by default each games is set to stops any download when that game is running but you can change it to no stop

A common habit is to do that as soon as you install a game, if the game in question is an offline game without internet connexion, it is safe to allow any download in the background for it.

Thank you so much mister!

[Zoridia]

Originally posted by class101:

Yes of course you can if you right click the game you are playing in Steam library > Properties > 2nd tab > 2nd dropdown menu, in here by default each games is set to stops any download when that game is running but you can change it to no stop

A common habit is to do that as soon as you install a game, if the game in question is an offline game without internet connexion, it is safe to allow any download in the background for it.

You have my love as well!

[ShelLuser]

Actually, a much better solution is to (temporarily) change the global setting without bothering with individual games. All games are set to follow the global settings by default anyway.

Right click the Steam client => Settings => Downloads. See 'download restrictions'. You'll want to check the option "Allow downloads during gameplay".

The reason I'd suggest this over messing with individual games: what if your download is done and you forgot all about the change you made? Or what if you want to download 2 (or more) games at once (which is what happened to me last week ;))?

This also makes it easier to disable the option again.

[davewegg123]

Yeah it's pretty absurd this given a modern day PC is about the most powerful machine that exists on earth.Iam pretty sure there quite capable of running quite a few games AND downloading at the same time.

Should not be a default setting in this day and age of PC's and the internet quite silly really.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by davewegg123:

Yeah it's pretty absurd this given a modern day PC is about the most powerful machine that exists on earth.Iam pretty sure there quite capable of running quite a few games AND downloading at the same time.

Should not be a default setting in this day and age of PC's and the internet quite silly really.

You gotta consider people playing multiplayer games. Background downloads being off by default makes sense for them.

[ShelLuser]

Originally posted by davewegg123:

Yeah it's pretty absurd this given a modern day PC is about the most powerful machine that exists on earth.Iam pretty sure there quite capable of running quite a few games AND downloading at the same time.

A powerful PC doesn't imply a powerful Internet connection.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by davewegg123:

Yeah it's pretty absurd this given a modern day PC is about the most powerful machine that exists on earth.Iam pretty sure there quite capable of running quite a few games AND downloading at the same time.

Should not be a default setting in this day and age of PC's and the internet quite silly really.

You also have to realize that not everyone has decent PCs or internet connections. You can easily see this just by reading the forums.