Download speed now displayed in bits rather than bytes?

[Darth]

As of the latest beta at time of writing (1456797646) the Steam client is displaying download speed in bit-based units rather than byte-based units, and has converted my previous cap setting (256KB/s to 2.0Mbps).

The use of bit-based units doesn't make much sense. It is being combined with byte-based units on the same display which gives a mixed message. "Current" speed and "Peak" speed are being displayed in bits, "Total" downloaded and "Disk usage" speed are in bytes (as are the indications of how big the game is and how much of it has been downloaded).

The only reason I see bit-based being useful is to make people think they're suddenly able to download 8x as fast as they usually can download, giving a placebo of Steam being faster. This won't work, too many Steam users will be aware of the difference between bits and bytes, and those that aren't are just going to be confused by the mix of terminology. ("If I'm downloading at "10Mbps" how come my 100MB download isn't done in 10 seconds??")

Why have bytes been partially replaced by bits?

[Phromik]

I don't know why, but I would like the option to turn it back to bytes. Checked every setting, and there doesn't seem to be one for this.

[DePhoegon]

They aren't the same speeds.

Ironically broham... 256KB/s = 2 Mbps, :P same rating. lame tricks DSL companies use to make you think you got fast speeds, using that small

10Mbps= 1.25MBPS capitalization matters. That''s ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ DSL spees bro, and I'm sorry

Cap matters, Mbps = Mega Bits Per second / MBps[MBPS] = Mega Bytes Per Second
Kb/s[Kbps] = Kilo bits per second, ultra slow ♥♥♥♥. // KB/s [KBps\KBPS] Kilo Byte per second

Disk usage is always in bytes as, that's how the OS works, it will not write in singular bits. (to much work for such data, it does it in pairs of 8, aka bytes) & there is always ALWAYS overhead with disk writing, *shrugs* as steam counter can see the OS usage of the disk, any security scanning, meaning a single MB could be written, read, scanned each time part of it is modified (any byte) meaning Disk load could be upto tripple to quad with some security setups.
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Should say, it's done to help match proper speeds up, because very few companies sell speed in MB/s, & go for Mbps for that number.

Also I don't concern myself with the opinions of those who don't bother to learn tech, when they complain about tech.

[Darth]

I'm aware of the difference (thus my statement of "converted my previous cap setting" rather than "made my cap speed higher").
What I'm saying the use of bits is going to confuse those who don't know the difference (especially since they're mixing it with bytes), and it's not going to trick those of us who do know the difference.
It's simply an annoyance to be viewing the two unit types at the same time, given that Steam has used bytes for at least 10 years. I'm not saying it's right just because it was "always that way", but I don't see any benefit in the change that has been made.

[DIENER]

I think most know the difference and if not they should learn it but I would really like to turn it back to bytes because I like to see the speed in MB and not Mb.

A simple option for switching it between MB or Mb is not hard to implement.

[󠀡 󠀡󠀡󠀡 󠀡󠀡󠀡]

I would like to view my speeds in bytes, bits mean nothing to me in terms of download speed as they are too truncated. I don't have a super fast connection like americans, my connection is only 12Mbps so the max I see is 1.5MB/s anyway.

[Pingger Shikkoken]

I have 2 Mbit/s and limited my download speed to 128KB/s. I called Steam buggy because it told me It is currently updating at "1.0M..." and I thought (knowing it is bytes) WTF 1 MByte/s! SOMEWEHRE is SOMETHING VERY WRONG! Because I is physically impossible to get more that 256KB/s at my location. After about an hour I noticed the download rates got converted to Mb/s!

Who thought this would be a good Idea?! This is worst Idea you had since making Mods purchaseable.

[Akaris]

bytes > bits
the majority of things use bytes, ergo it's best to stick to using bytes for download.
or, as mentioned, offer the option.

but if it's not broken.. don't fix it Valve..

[Charlie]

I was just about to make a similar post; they now display the download speed in Bits rather than Bytes - A choice that I think will work out better - There are a lot of threads on people asking why there speed is so slow and you have to explain to them the Bit = Byte conversion.

However the an option to display Bytes or Bits would be welcome.

[*DontRacist*]

Originally posted by DIENER:

I think most know the difference and if not they should learn it but I would really like to turn it back to bytes because I like to see the speed in MB and not Mb.

A simple option for switching it between MB or Mb is not hard to implement.

[[πKR] XtoX]

Let us have the choice please.
In France using bits is totally absurd.
We never use bits, except for the connection maximum speed capability.
Very disturbing to have to do the convertion when you look at your download speed in Steam now...

[zp]

Could format it to display both, that way you can see the format ISP usually advertise, and the format normally used for downloads.

# bits/s (# Byte/s)

[Darth]

I agree with zp, showing "256KB/s (2.0Mbps)" (as an example) would make sense.

[The Electrician]

An option to change between the two modes should be implemented, I quite dislike the units shown this way.

[Taylor Sherman]

Hi everyone,

In the US at least, the speed advertised for connections by Internet Service Providers is usually in bits - for instance 10Mbps. For this reason, it seemed better to change the Steam UI to use the same units. So for instance, if you have a 10Mbps internet connection, and see 7 Mbps being used by Steam, you can very quickly tell if that performance is close to what you'd hope for, and also how much of your connection is free for other traffic.

With the old units, it would have been displayed as 875KB/sec, which is much less intuitive to compare with.

We'll look into adding the option to select which unit is used.

thanks,
Taylor

[Nuator]

Bring back the old unit please.