Someone explain to me the steam download figures please

Destination

Destination

Destination

Soldato
Joined
31 May 2009
Posts
21,505
I am somewhat lost as to exactly what speed things are downloading at.
I can understand the figures beside each game, but the overall status bit at the top appears complete fabrication.

Can someone explain how the figures are actually derived?

 
I would say its downloading at 1818 KB/S and that it is being buggy...

Or the other way round, what connection are you on?

Can't be bothered to work it out but doe the speeds match the time remaining.
 
Okay so I look at download rate?

Why is the rate for each game then consistently above the overall download rate?
Why is the amount showing for each game higher than the overall?
Compressed versus eventual diskspace?
 
I spose if you really wanted to know you could download a bandwidth monitor application, seems too much hassle though. Steam is always pretty buggy for me when downloading, loves pausing itself :(
 
The steam download speed is usually miles off, I'm on about 9mb, from the fastest servers I download at about 1MB/sec, but steam regularly tells me I'm downloading at 2MB.
 
It'll automatically pause if you start playing a game or an online game usually.

Anywya the upper figure was correct as Mr K stated, i resrated it and used a network mnitor, the lower figures over time start to lie.
I think it is due to the overall GB needed being a compressed amount, thus the steam estimates what they actually use.
 
I tend to just use task manager to see actual speed. I think the steam numbers are generally garbage.
 
One thing is intersting, Virgin as you know will reduce your DL speed if you go over a certain limit. So for a period of the day if you Dl over 5Gb they will throttle your speed for 5 hours or a similar period.
I was throttled earlier today, just as I expected, as I am downloading 39.5Gb of data for these two games. Whats most interesting is the timer must have now expired, as I am getting a full 2.1MB/sec again now on my 20mbits connection.

I've never seen the expiration of the throttle so aptly demonstrated. Hopefully it'll get finished before I get rethrottled.
 
Also, another note. The 'downloaded' and 'Total downloaded' won't match, because the 'downloaded' figure is actually the install figure. Say a game is 100Mb, when its downloaded from steam its actually a 90Mb download which extracts to 100Mb. The downloaded figure shows the 100Mb expected file size, while the 'total downloaded' figure just shows how much has actually been downloaded. It doesn't really make much sense :3
 
Oh Richard Branson how could you let your Virgin be sullied so. My steam has a similar issue when it thinks it's downing at 14MB a second.
 
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