Staggeringly slow download from STEAM

  • Yes I know, it's a common and boring title for a thread.

    But seriously, I am in the process of re-downloading and installing AFS2 from STEAM. I am on a lightning fast fibre optic broadband service (confirmed as working at normal speeds) and AFS2 has been downloading for 5 hours, and is at .................. 11% ||

    It's just insane - and was the same the last time I downloaded from STEAM. I don't even have all of the DLC!

    Any known problems, or is a 40+ hour download just "normal" for AFS2 from Steam these days?

    Thanks.

  • Took about 4 hours with my modest 5 MB/sec connection.

    Guess it depends on country and which Steam server you are connected too?

    Contact Steam support?

    Regards,

    Peter Splinter

    i5-7400@3,4 GHz, 16GB RAM, GTX 1660 Super, Pico 4, Quest 2 , 'Vintage' Pro Flight Trainer, X52 Pro, VKB pedals

  • Took about 4 hours with my modest 5 MB/sec connection.

    Guess it depends on country and which Steam server you are connected too?

    Contact Steam support?

    Hi, thanks. I'm in the UK and broadband is pretty good here. I downloaded 300Gb of ortho scenery for X-Plane in around 3.5 hours. I am guessing it is a Steam issue. I think the download speeds are severely capped there. I know it is not down to AFS2 and wasn't suggesting that :o) ...was just wondering if there was a known problem.

    Here are the latest stats from the Steam download page for AFS2 :-

    Commenced: 15:46

    Running time: 6 hours 21 minutes

    Downloaded: 73,1GB / 145.5GB (50.2%)

    So it looks like almost 13 hours download time - insane! Anyway, it will be worth it of course, but a shame to have to wait til the following day to play a game that you start installing at 15:46!

    Cheers,

  • I think my download took about 17 hours. My service provider advertises 45 Mbps in evening peak times but I have never seen more than 5 mbps in any download. They obviously mean from their servers to local connections.

  • You can’t expect Aerofly downloading to take fully advantage of your bandwidth. The present speed (around 4-5Mb/s) is already improved and in my opinion, is generous. The downloading speed used to be 300-400kb/s and it took more than two days when I first downloaded Aerofly.

  • Like most high-traffic websites, Steam uses a worldwide Content Delivery Network (CDN), in Steam's case Akamai.

    So you don't download directly from Steam's servers but from Akamai's servers. Akamai has servers worldwide, and your download gets routed to the one closest to your location. So if this specific regional server closest to your own location is experiencing temporary problems, you will experience them as well.

  • I never really understood internet speeds advertised vs reality. My relatively slow speeds apply to other downloads than AFS2 as well. Megascenery Earth is not fast either. Since my wife is using my PC for work I am using an old laptop that wont run AFS2. I found it will my old FSX deluxe at a steady 30 fps and have been downloading Megascenery photo scenery onto it. Usually best to let a state download overnight. I am not complaining, what I have is better than what I used to have, but I do wonder if I need to pay for the 43.5 mbps plan rather than the cheaper 21 mbps plan given my actual download performance.