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Forum Discussion

chazzy2501e's avatar
Jul 22, 2022
Solved

Downloading from Steam Cripples all other web traffic.

As the title, before I purchased an XR500, downloading games using steam would see a slowdown on internet responsiveness for me and the household but only noticeable not annoying.   Now with the XR500 Steam downloads quickly but webpages takes 3-4 seconds to download or start to download, other devices are more affected and it upsets everyone else! (a 40 minute new game download is now unacceptable)

 

This even affects this PC that is using steam, youtube videos stop and buffer, it never used to do this (with the dumb router). 

 

I have no QOS features currently enabled in the XR500 (the old ISP router didn't have QOS settings) Can I fix steam downloads so they don't bork the web for everyone else? (Also not mess up steam gaming later)

 

Cheers anyone, I'm 2.3.2.134

8 Replies

    • chazzy2501e's avatar
      chazzy2501e
      Tutor

      Sorry, but this hasn't solved my issues. The main steam machine (this PC) now downloads more slowly even if no other device is in use.. 

       

      When other devices are used the huge delay is still present...?  

       

      So on my dumb router steam dl at around 8.4MBs but other devices can surf just fine AND the steam download slows down somewhat, everything is good.

       

      On the XR500 with QOS set to 70% download and upload (of benched internet speed) (always mode) The steam machine is always slower (than maximum) now capped at 6.4MBs but other devices are crippled with 500Kbs of throughput for 2-3 seconds then around 25mbit.

       

      Then if you re-do the speed test the same behaviour occurs. I used my iphone se2020, a quest2 and the firestick4k. same behaviour.. very slow for a few seconds then it picks up. (this doesn't occur on the dumb router)

       

      I'm using fast.com with retry on the other devices. (through respective browsers) stopping steam downloads there is NO 2-3 seconds of 500kbps slowness.  (although it does trend up, the test starts immediately and starts at 10+Mbps) Notably more performant. 

       

      What should I look at to improve this behaviour? As it stands I loose maximum download speeds for the heavy downloads and incur an unacceptable delay before being allocated some bandwidth for others.

       

      The steam downloading PC is the only wired device.

      quest2 has exclusive use of 5ghz (for airlink usually)

      others use 2.4ghz

       

      cheers

       

      • Netduma-Fraser's avatar
        Netduma-Fraser
        NetDuma Partner
        Congestion Control by design does limit your speeds based on the percentage you set to ensure downloads etc can't saturate the connection and cause you to lag. 70% is a recommended starting point but it doesn't work for everyone so we encourage people to experiment with the percentage to find what works best for them. As you want higher speeds try higher than 70% to see if it gives you a better balance. What is the model of the modem/router the XR is connected to and are ALL devices connected to the XR?