So lately, since before the holidays, Steam seems to be really slow for me when downloading games and content. The best I seem to manage with them anymore is around 500Kbps, which means a multi-gigabyte game download is taking several hours to complete.
I’ve tested my internet connection using several different speed test services on the web and I’m averaging download speeds of 2.5Mbps to West Coast locations and 4.5+Mbps to East Coast locations. I have Steam Donwload configured to use the closest server to me (Columbus) and the widest bandwidth (Cable/Fiber). I’ve tried donwloading at different times during the day, morning, afternoon and late night, and still it’s at 500Kbps. I’m thinking the 500Kbps throttle is coming from Steam’s end, that it’s simply the fastest connection they are willing to give me. Frankly, that sucks.
Is this pretty much normal? What kind of connection speeds do you all see from Steam regularly? I could swear I was getting much faster downloads several months ago. It’s frustrating because it makes installing the games I’ve purchased a real hassle. I suppose I could simply kick off an install before bed, but I don’t like to leave my computer on overnight if I don’t have to. Looks like that may be the only solution though.
I’ve consistently gotten around 700Kbps, which is the limit of my internet speed, and haven’t noticed any decrease in the new year.
Try using different Steam servers to download from. Columbus is closest but might not be the fastest. Try Detroit or Chicago and see if that makes a difference.
That’s a good idea (which I should have thought of earlier). I will try a different server on the East Coast where I seem to get 4Mbps and greater regularly when I run connection speed tests.
I get 1.5-2.0mb/s, I just downloaded Mass Effect 2 and saw 2.4mb/s, close to my max (maybe because it was over 10GB steam gives it more bandwith?). But don’t always think it’s Steam. ISP’s are known to limit download speeds from certain sources. Here’s the tool mentioned in the article (note, I haven’t used it myself).
Have you checked your download source? Every so often, Steam gets slow for me, but then I check my Steam options and it is downloading from some far distant US location. I then flip it back to something local, restart and everything gets better.
I have seen 2.5 M/s at home and some ridiculous numbers at work.
I thought when I looked at the speed Steam was telling me (500Kbps) it was small “b” not big “B”, but I could be wrong. If it is big “B” then you’re right, since you’d take 4.5 million and divide by 8 (for the bits) to get bytes per second.
Now I’m doubting myself…
I will check when I get home this evening and post results. If it is bits, not bytes, I’ll try switching Steam servers and post results of that as well.
Heh heh, the irony… as i started to download the Shogun 2 demo in Steam, it ocurred to me to look the speed right now, it would be relevant to the thread. And surprise! it paused itself, all alone.
Oh Steam, how i hate you sometimes…
Steam also maxes out my connection and then some. I don’t know which server I connect to but I almost always get 7.0mb - 9.0mb a sec. I think on big sale days it might dip down to 4.0mb but never much below that.
