Steam download rate, questions!

[kreshma]

I am downloading modern warfare 3 currently, and I am wondering about the download rate. I had a 3.7 MB/S peak, but am now at a constant 1.6 MB/S download rate. Is there any way I can open up "ports" or such to get a higher speed? I did a similar thing on bittorents, but I'm not sure if you can do anything to change your download rate on steam other than choosing different server locations to download from.

Thank you!

[satyrikon]

Not that im aware of, your lucky to get that amount of speed tho really - in rural canada where I'm living all we get is about 800kbs-1.5mb's at prime.
I'd stab all kinds of people for 3x the speed ;]

[Deleted]

Bear in mind the game was released at midnight and thus many people are downloading it. The servers may be at a high capacity and thus download speed can be expected to decrease as we enter peak (evening,) time.

[Deleted]

I am downloading modern warfare 3 currently, and I am wondering about the download rate. I had a 3.7 MB/S peak, but am now at a constant 1.6 MB/S download rate. Is there any way I can open up "ports" or such to get a higher speed? I did a similar thing on bittorents, but I'm not sure if you can do anything to change your download rate on steam other than choosing different server locations to download from.

Thank you!

That is probably the most stupid question i have read the entire day.

- The game was released today, the servers are overflowing with ppl downloading it right now!

plz just use ur brain before posting online

This user has received an infraction for flaming. We don't call each other out on the internet. This is a forum community for everyone.

- Culadin

[Deleted]

Downloading (or rather, transferring) is a process with three key variables.

(1) Host Upload speed
(2) Node-to-node speeds
(3) Client Download speed

Right now, there are a lot of people that are asking the Steam servers for the MW3 data. As a result, there is a limited amount of (1) Host Upload speed available and therefore the speeds you see do not fully reach capacity of your (3) connection. The problem is entirely outside of your control, and the sole potential solution is to find another host with better speeds. That likely doesn't exist however.

Torrent networking is a system where there are dozens (hundreds, even thousands) of people that are connected over a network uploading and downloading a single file. As such, you are not particularly affected if a specific host has limited upload speeds and indeed - very few hosts actually have upload speeds of more than a few dozen kilobytes. Instead, it leverages the capabilities of dozens of hosts in order to obtain its high speeds. However, this requires an extremely large amount of active connections - and can overwhelm cheaper NAT/PAT devices (Home Routers/Gateways) unless they are specifically configured to be prepared for them.