Ideally, games downloaded via the
Steam client should be as fast as via torrent. But in practice this is not always the case. Sometimes it happens that the program settings are wrong, it interferes with your antivirus, or a movie is on in your browser. Sometimes there is just technical work or a problem, and you just need to wait for some time.
In this instruction we will consider each reason separately and tell you how you can increase the download speed in Steam, without having to reinstall the program. There are 5 ways in total, try them one by one.
Way 1 – change the download region
Steam automatically detects the geographical location of your computer and connects to the nearest download server. Changing the region to a farther away from you can help if the speed on the nearest one is low due to high load or technical problems.
Go to the client settings. Select “Downloads” on the left and check which region was automatically selected. Even if your region is there, try changing it to any other region. After choosing, click “OK”, the changes will take effect immediately, you do not need to restart the program.
Method 2 – Check the Speed Settings
Check whether the speed is limited in the program settings. In the same place where the region is changing, there is an option. Select for it the option “No limit” . Here also click the “Clear Download Cache” button. This will delete the temporary files stored on your computer. A large cache can slow down downloading and installing games, especially if it contains corrupted files. It takes time for the program to check their integrity, and downloads are paused while they are checked.
Method 3 – Close other Internet programs
Check if there are other programs running at the same time as Steam that are using the internet. These could be torrent clients, download managers, a browser running an online movie, etc. Close them while the games are downloading. Be sure to check the task manager to see which programs are using network resources at the moment.
Method 4 – Check Steam server load statistics
Steam download statistics at https://store.steampowered.com/stats/content/ . During sales and vacations, servers are busier than usual. Sometimes they cannot cope with the influx of visitors. The speed of traffic decreases, and there is no way to fix it. It is best to just wait for a while, or continue downloading the game at a slow speed.
Method 5 – Check your internet speed
Check the real speed of your internet. Maybe the game is downloading at its maximum speed? Provider may promise you 100 Mbps, but in fact such speed will be only at night when the network is unloaded, and the rest of the time it will be much lower. There are many sites where you can check the real speed of your Internet.
And finally, some useful information.
Did you know that games on Steam are not downloaded at a
constant speed? First, some files are downloaded to your computer, then they start unpacking. During the unpacking process, the speed in the client is displayed low, it drops to almost zero. And this is normal.
When the unpacking is finished, the speed will recover and the downloading will continue.
