Steam Downloads

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I get between 1.5-3.5 MB/sec. Not bad. I've also had upwards of 6.5 MB/sec. Thats MB not Mb. I really dislike the idea that ISPs sell their plans on Mb/sec because it looks bigger.
Anyway, Steam runs pretty good for me, ever check your settings to see if you're downloading from a server near you?

 

[Someone Depressing]

It's average. I've never had trouble with it. Yeah, it takes a while. But if it really bothers you that much, then move to Sweden, where the average download rate is 40 GB an hour.

And if that sounds like a bad idea, and it is, just remember that Steam is popular and the servers are probably stuggling. And even then, the download rates better than they have the right to be.

 

[Billy D Williams]

I usually get about 1.8-2.1 Mbps, so Call Of Duty: Dogs would only take me about 4-5 hours. Far Cry 3 was a decently sized game and took me about 1 and a half, so I guess its just were you live.

 

[FFP2]

I have the same problem. It goes from 0KB/s to around 100KB/s (my max is 125KB/s) every few minutes. It takes forever to download something and I honestly don't know what's causing this. It's definitely not due to the games being heavily in demand cos it took ages to download Mirror's Edge, Human Revolution and Just Cause 2.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Really?

Steam is the quickest out of all the digital distribution services I use in terms of download speed.

My max is usually around 2.4mbps, but I've seen it go up to 4mbps with steam.

 

[Callate]

Not really. I've never had a game take more than maybe ten hours to download at the most.

But then, I live in Washington; I could drive to Valve headquarters in about three hours.

 

[Ieyke]

Is it just me or does Steam have the WORST download time of any of the "Game Services" regularly used? (IE: Origin, Curse, Battle.net, Gamestop's Downloader etc.)

It regularly takes days and hours for me download things that at most would take a day from another service. IE: When I pre-loaded Battlefield 4 from Origin, a 24GB game, it took maybe 16 hours total. Now I'm trying to download Call of Duty: Ghosts from Steam and the estimate time is 3 days for a 28GB campaign. That isn't even counting the separate 24GB Multiplayer download. The 10GB patch for BF4 took maybe 4-5 hours tops? Guild Wars 2 downloaded in its entirety from GS in my 12 hour workday when I installed it.

This isn't the first time I've had this problem with Steam either. It took me like a week straight to install the games I got from the Summer Sale (Sleeping Dogs, Metro Last Light, New Vegas).

My Download Region is set to the area closest to me (New York. Next closest would be Boston) and the download speed is uncapped. But it keeps jumping among "Not Downloading at all" to only 100KB/S to sometimes 400KB/S, mainly staying at 100KB/S.

Sure I'll eventually get my game; at the end of the freaking week while not being able to play anything else online.

(And yes I already have gone through my router settings)

It's just you.

I downloaded Assassin's Creed 4:Black Flag in a few minutes.

Change your Download Region to Taiwan.
New York is obviously overloaded.

 

[Angelous Wang]

Is it just me or does Steam have the WORST download time of any of the "Game Services" regularly used? (IE: Origin, Curse, Battle.net, Gamestop's Downloader etc.)

It regularly takes days and hours for me download things that at most would take a day from another service. IE: When I pre-loaded Battlefield 4 from Origin, a 24GB game, it took maybe 16 hours total. Now I'm trying to download Call of Duty: Ghosts from Steam and the estimate time is 3 days for a 28GB campaign. That isn't even counting the separate 24GB Multiplayer download. The 10GB patch for BF4 took maybe 4-5 hours tops? Guild Wars 2 downloaded in its entirety from GS in my 12 hour workday when I installed it.

This isn't the first time I've had this problem with Steam either. It took me like a week straight to install the games I got from the Summer Sale (Sleeping Dogs, Metro Last Light, New Vegas).

My Download Region is set to the area closest to me (New York. Next closest would be Boston) and the download speed is uncapped. But it keeps jumping among "Not Downloading at all" to only 100KB/S to sometimes 400KB/S, mainly staying at 100KB/S.

Sure I'll eventually get my game; at the end of the freaking week while not being able to play anything else online.

(And yes I already have gone through my router settings)

It's you, Steam seams to have a 15mb cap on downloading (I'm guessing anyway) but for me it downloads at constant 15mb.

24gb is like 2-3 hours on Steam maybe for me.

 

[Seydaman]

Huh, really?

I get like 10mb/s on Steam.

Weird.

 

[Weaver]

Must be a world location thing. I pretty much always get 100% of my downspeed on steam.

 

[gxs]

I always get a 100% of my speed when downloading from Steam not to mention that my fancy router likes it and doesn't close the pipes when Steam does its stuff. Origin on the other hand has a feud going on with my router and it gets constantly blocked by my IPS software that's in place.

 

[Neyon]

Mine sits at 100% of my bandwidth cap and stays there.

 

[Agayek]

Is it just me or does Steam have the WORST download time of any of the "Game Services" regularly used? (IE: Origin, Curse, Battle.net, Gamestop's Downloader etc.)

Over where I live (near San Francisco), I get 6-7 MB/s downloads from Steam pretty regularly. Never had it drop below 2 either, without a problem on my end. Maybe their servers on the East Coast just suck?

 

[Vigormortis]

God damn.

I got tired of waiting, so while cleaning my room earlier I decided to drag my computer over to the router on the landlord's side of the apartment and plug it in directly to see if that would help.

I went from 100KB/S average (wireless) to 3.5MB/S (wired).

I'll be done with all 60GB by lunch at this rate.

Ah, there was your problem.

If you want fast and consistent download speeds, with anything, never...and I mean NEVER...rely solely on wireless. Especially in light of the ever increasing "signal clutter" in the air.

My suggestion would be to get a new router. Possibly one with both wireless and wired ports, and preferably with faster transfer speeds.

 

[Vigormortis]

I have the same problem. It goes from 0KB/s to around 100KB/s (my max is 125KB/s) every few minutes. It takes forever to download something and I honestly don't know what's causing this. It's definitely not due to the games being heavily in demand cos it took ages to download Mirror's Edge, Human Revolution and Just Cause 2.

A few things you could try:

* Check your download speed cap and download region in Steam -> Settings -> Downloads

* Make sure no other program or user is "hogging" the bandwidth on your network

* Check your router's settings

* Be sure no anti-viral or other security programs are interfering with Steam

* Try connecting directly to the router or modem via a cat-5/ethernet cable instead of using wireless

If none of these help to clear up your issue, let me know. I can try to help you figure it out.

 

[Ticklefist]

I download from Steam (or anywhere) at pretty much exactly what I get at speedtest.net

Also, some of you are using the acronym for Megabits when you clearly mean MegaBytes. Confusing at first.

 

[Th37thTrump3t]

My Download Region is set to the area closest to me (New York. Next closest would be Boston) and the download speed is uncapped. But it keeps jumping among "Not Downloading at all" to only 100KB/S to sometimes 400KB/S, mainly staying at 100KB/S.

Try to play around with the Region settings. Just because the data center is geographically closer to you, doesn't mean it will provide the best speeds. I live in Streetsboro, OH, about 1 1/2 hours away from Pittsburgh, yet I find that I get better download speeds from the Columbus region, which is almost twice the distance.

 

[Lillowh]

For me, steam is a dream compared to pretty much any other download service because it's one of the few places that actually uses all of my download speed, getting up to my 110Mbps speed on most downloads that aren't in huge demand, like dots 2 updates. For me, origin only ever does half that, while psn is the worst offender with spoeds only really reaching AT MAX 1 MBps less than a tenth of my bandwidth.