6 Ways to Make Steam Downloads Faster

The feeling of buying a brand new game is great. But once you realize you’re going to have to have to wait, possibly hours, for it to download, that excitement can start to wane. You might start to wonder if there’s any possible way to make your Steam game download faster. And in fact, there are.

All of the methods outlined here can help you get much faster download speeds for your Steam games, allowing you to begin your game much more quickly. Try these tips out and see just how much time is cut off from your next Steam download. 

Close Other Programs

If you have some other programs opened while trying to complete your Steam download, these can actually greatly hinder your download speed. Especially if certain programs are also connected to the internet and using data, you should look into closing them.

To do this, open your task manager by either going to Start and searching for it. Or, you can press Ctrl + Alt + Del and select Task manager from the menu. You can now see which programs you have open besides Steam.

If you click More details, you can see which programs are running in the background. You can also see which programs are using your network connection by looking at the Network column. If another app is using a large percentage of it, you can close it by right-clicking the program and selecting End task.

Strengthen Your Internet Connection

Sometimes, your issue might just be that your internet connection isn’t too great. There are some things you can do, though, to boost your connection and possibly increase download speeds. 

First, you’ll want to try connecting via ethernet cable if you can. This will significantly increase the speed of the internet to your computer. You can also try simply moving closer to your Wi-Fi router and see if that makes a difference, as signals can sometimes become weaker in certain areas of a house. Especially far away from the router.

Set Priority for Steam

Another easy fix you can do to make Steam download faster is to set priority for Steam downloads in Task Manager. This will tell your computer you want Steam to have a high priority when it comes to its network connection. To do this, first open Task Manager, either search for it in the Windows start menu or press Ctrl + Alt + Del.

Find the Steam Client Service and right-click on it, then select Go to details. 

Now, right-click on SteamService.exe and select Set priority > High. This should give more connectivity priority to Steam and help with your downloads.

Change the Download Region

Steam will automatically select the region you connect to servers from, and if it incorrectly selects your area, you may be trying to download from a server much further away from you. To check your download region, in Steam go to Steam > Settings > Downloads.

In this window, look at the Download Region section. Make sure the region is closest to where you’re actually located, as this will ensure the fastest download speeds. Another change we can make here is just below, where it reads Limit bandwidth to. Check this off to choose No limit, which will allow Steam to use the full extent of bandwidth needed to download your game.

Disconnect Other Devices From Your Internet Connection

A big part of why your download might be going so slow is having other devices connected to your network that are using data. This could be things like your phone, tablets, or gaming consoles. If you want the fastest download speeds, it’s best to turn off these devices or disconnect them from your network so that nothing interferes with the connection to your PC.

Even if you may not be actively using these devices, if they are on or in sleep mode they still could be running programs in the background that are using your network. This is why turning them off or disconnecting them completely will help to avoid this and make your Steam download speeds much faster.

Disable Antivirus Software

Antivirus software or firewalls have the potential to cause slower download speeds with Steam. This is because these softwares interact with disk and network operations, which could cause issues or even false alerts. Some firewalls may also prevent Steam from connecting to its servers, again causing problems for you.

If you use a certain firewall or antivirus program, you’ll have to go into these programs and either disable them or set exceptions for Steam and your Steam games. If you’re using just Windows security, here’s how you can disable it.

Go to Start > Settings > Update & Security.

Then go to Windows Security > Virus & threat protection. Under Virus & threat protection settings, go to Manage settings. Here, find Real-time protection and set this to Off using the toggle switch.

To allow Steam through the Windows Defender firewall, go to Start > Settings > Update & Security > Windows Security > Firewall & Network protection.

In this window, select Allow an app through firewall. In the pop up window you can scroll through the list to see what apps are allowed by seeing if they are checked off. If you want to change this, click Change settings.

If you don’t see Steam in the list already, you can select Allow another app and search for it on your computer. Make sure you also allow your Steam games. 

Download Your Steam Games Faster

Even if you just follow a few of these tips, you should notice a marked difference in your download speeds through Steam. Although it’s hard to control how powerful your actual internet connection is, using these methods you can make the most of what you can control. Then, you should be able to get to playing your favorite games again in no time.