Does Steam and other apps cap their download speeds?

computeraddict · February 12, 2023

Hi, I have 1.5 Gigabit per second fiber internet which equates to 187.5 Megabytes per second. I did a speed test via ethernet and was getting the desired speeds that is 1500-1600 megabits per second. However, when I try to download a game on let's say Steam, the download speed is capped to 80 MB/s. on Battlenet, it's capped to 60 MB/s. on Rockstar launcher it's capped to 140 MB/s. why am I not getting the full 187.5 MB/s speeds when downloading games? Rockstar launcher downloads atleast came close to my desired speed, but Steam and Battlenet were just horrible
I have a new laptop which has 12700H, 3070 TI, 32 GB ram, 1 TB PCIe M.2 Gen4 SSD. it's the MSI Raider GE76. I live near Toronto so the nearest server that I'm using on steam is the Toronto Canada one.

I don't always understand what Linus is talking about. Half the stuff he says goes over my head. lol but here in this video, you can see he was able to get HIS DESIRED speeds on steam, but idk why I can't.

SkilledRebuilds · February 12, 2023

Not all downloads from launchers are direct streamed in sequential downloads.

Some decompression and unpacking can be involved making you CPU/Disk speed bound with some download launchers.

Falcon1986 · February 12, 2023

25 minutes ago, computeraddict said:

I live near Toronto so the nearest server that I'm using on steam is the Toronto Canada one.

This server isn’t just serving you. Other users in your region might also be accessing it. Depending on where the servers are being hosted, the backbone speed it has to the internet, how busy it is at any given moment, and a whole host of other factors, it’s not going to always be able to max out your download speed.

For all you know, you might have a faster download speed than that server’s upload.

Mark Kaine · February 12, 2023

it also depends on the game actually... some times games just have weird write/download cycles, and technically your download speed would always be limited by hard drive speeds (or vice versa)

ie. if you use a slow hard drive with 80mb/s, downloads won't exceed that for example.

but yeah, mostly this is how devs pack their games (often times as poorly as somehow possible it seems), server congestion, etc, but afaik Steam doesn't limit downloads artificially... although their internet plan will have a limit too.

Alex Atkin UK · February 12, 2023

The irony with how updates are handled is that on faster broadband it can be quicker to uninstall and reinstall the game than to wait for it to patch the existing data. Even on a super fast NVMe SSD, its so much work on the CPU.