Steam Download time, WTF?

[Deafyx]

So I would say I have decent internet. I can play MW3 online with 2 PS3s, one wired/one wireless, have WoW going on 2 PC's, Laptop going as well with zero lag on any of the games. I decided to purchase my first game on the PC which is Mass Effect since I always wanted to play the series, but its an hour download time? WTH?

Does this happen for everyone else?

[Mega Gengar]

For the size of ME1 that's not really that long, how big is it 3/4gb or so? My download speed is generally 1.4mb/s but I'm from AU so we are probably slower than you anyway xD.

[mirthen]

Whats your internet speed. lag has little to do with over all download speeds.

Also whats the size of the game, i know most are a few gigs but havnt downloaded that one so not sure.

[Deafyx]

whats your internet speed. Lag has little to do with over all download speeds.

Also whats the size of the game, i know most are a few gigs but havnt downloaded that one so not sure.

22 dl/4 up

The game is 10K MBs I guess.

[Zeta333]

So I would say I have decent internet. I can play MW3 online with 2 PS3s, one wired/one wireless, have WoW going on 2 PC's, Laptop going as well with zero lag on any of the games. I decided to purchase my first game on the PC which is Mass Effect since I always wanted to play the series, but its an hour download time? WTH?

Does this happen for everyone else?

Im pretty sure thats very reasonable. If you want you can go to speedtest.net and post your results and we can tell you if thats in line with your net. Just go take a nap or set it up to dl when you go to sleep.

---------- Post added 2012-01-23 at 04:55 AM ----------

also just googled this

Mass Effect Download File Size 7.16GB

So really an hour isnt bad, but dont forget about the zillions of updates ur gona have to dl after. Really no reason to complain here as an hour is very reasonable.

[Tsimp]

Steam download times are always high... I have a 40MB/s connection and it maxes at 1MB/s for Steam at the MOST and is normally less than that. But yeah, Games are huge, an hour DL time is pretty good. Back when I had a 1mb/s connection it took me 14+ hours to download a game sometimes.

With 7.16 gigs of stuff and it taking an hour thats about 2mb/s, not bad at all.

[Edge-]

If I'm not mistaken, the game is over 10 gigs for the full thing...an hour to download more than 10 gigs is a very short period of time. Were you expecting it to function like cloud gaming and stream the game to you from another machine?

[flam]

an hour isnt that bad... im sure you can rant about kyle williams losing the game for the 9ers not once, but twice. (i know i have)

[Deafyx]

Im pretty sure thats very reasonable. If you want you can go to speedtest.net and post your results and we can tell you if thats in line with your net. Just go take a nap or set it up to dl when you go to sleep.

---------- Post added 2012-01-23 at 04:55 AM ----------

also just googled this



So really an hour isnt bad, but dont forget about the zillions of updates ur gona have to dl after. Really no reason to complain here as an hour is very reasonable.

Hmm, thanks for the info. Would buying games disc based be faster?

---------- Post added 2012-01-22 at 08:57 PM ----------

an hour isnt that bad... im sure you can rant about kyle williams losing the game for the 9ers not once, but twice. (i know i have)

Oh god, dont get me started.

[Mega Gengar]

Yeah it's faster generally but Steam most of the time is cheaper and I find it easier to just click buy and then watch a movie or something while waiting for it to download.

[Organoth]

Your bandwidth (dl/ul speed) will always greatly exceed the download speed of any website or download service. Companies intentionally limit the amount of bandwidth you can take up on their servers to make sure there is enough for everyone else. STEAM does not have the fastest download speeds in the world but they are generally pretty good. The download speed you are experiencing with STEAM is greatly affect by how busy that particular server is.

In your preferences you can change the server you connect for downloads if the server you are currently downloading from is running slow. My default sever is LA but if the speed is slow I can usually switch to a server in Texas and things run fine. But just today I re-downloaded and installed Bioshock 2 (4.5GB) and it took less then 30 minutes.

[Rubidium]

Can you go to the store and back and then install the game in an hour?

[mirthen]

Yeah at that speed an hour is around the right time. Im around 29mbit(supposed to be only 25 but its always faster) it would take me at least 46min or so for 10 gigs. I usually get around 2-3MB/sec offa steam(my max would be around 3.6MB/sec), guess its different for everyone.

im sure some of the people here can also say things like... i can remember downloading a game that was a CD in size(700megs) on dialup, yeah those days sucked. However as internet speeds get faster, the games just keep gettin bigger :/

[Deafyx]

Okay. Thanks everyone. First time purchasing a game over the internet, so wasnt expecting to get hit with a DL time of an hour, thankfully its not 14+ though lol.

Another Steam question, if I buy the game disc based, will it be able to interact with Steam? Like my friends can see what Im playing?

[Gringgotts]

I'm super jealous, it takes me anywhere from 5 to 15 hours to download a modern game, depending on size of course.

[yeast]

An hour? I'd say you don't really have a problem. Seriously, I remember having an eta of several weeks for some of my games back in the summer sale.

If it really is bothering you I'd just try to switch your download server. In Steam just click on Steam>Settings, then go to the Downloads + Cloud tab and change your download region. I doubt it will make much of a difference this time but if you do get slow speeds in the future I'd try this.

Edit: Damn, I was beaten to it

[Aqua]

Amg a whole hour!? Geez.
(Seriously dude? I sit through entire days while my shoddy connection does it's thing)


Yes it will be able to be seen by your friends if you buy the disc. It should unless endorsed by EA's shitty Origin service or a must by Windows Live (check), automatically sync with steam.

[Zeta333]

Okay. Thanks everyone. First time purchasing a game over the internet, so wasnt expecting to get hit with a DL time of an hour, thankfully its not 14+ though lol.

Another Steam question, if I buy the game disc based, will it be able to interact with Steam? Like my friends can see what Im playing?

Most of the time it will take around the same amount of time to install from discs as it will to dl from steam. Just set up dls before u go to bed or school or work.

[Voidgazer]

Another Steam question, if I buy the game disc based, will it be able to interact with Steam? Like my friends can see what Im playing?

List of games which retail CD-key may be activated on Steam.
You can also add a non-Steam game to your library at anytime, allowing you to use Steam overlay in game. Though the overlay itself doesn't work with every game, you'll be shown as playing the game you added in Steam friendlist.

[zshikara]

word of warning: ME3 will not be available on steam. You'll have to use origin (EA's version of steam) to download it and play it. Sucks, but just wanted you to know before you finish ME2 and wonder wtf happened to number 3 (which comes out Mar 8).