Why do my games download so slow when I have fast internet?
I don‘t know about you, but few things test my patience like sitting there eagerly waiting as the download progress bar for the latest Call of Duty game crawls across the screen. I have a blazing fast 150Mbps fiber connection – so why is it taking 5+ hours when my buddy downloaded it in 30 minutes?!
Believe me, I feel your pain. We fork out good money every month for high speed internet, so why do our games download at a snail‘s pace?
How Fast is Fast Enough for Gaming?
When it comes to downloading and gaming online, the FCC defines "broadband" internet as 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up. But if you‘re a serious gamer with multiple devices, you really want faster speeds:
| Internet Speed | Gaming Use Case |
| 25-75Mbps down | Good for one gamer with a couple devices |
| 100-200Mbps down | Great for multi gamer households, especially with 4K streaming etc |
| > 250Mbps down | Blazing fast! Enables ultra low latency cloud gaming. |
I recently upgraded to the 300Mbps plan from my ISP, but still battle slow patching and installation even though my speed tests check out nicely. What gives?
Peak Times Mean Congestion, Throttling
If you notice snail pace game downloads mainly during peak evening hours, it likely comes down to network congestion. Our ISP and the gaming servers get hammered with tons of traffic which can slow things down. Ever feel like your ISP throttles your connection when you try downloading a 50GB title? You might be onto something!
During the WoW: Shadowlands rollout I saw my download go from 3MB/s during the day down to 200KB/s at night when everyone got home from work/school and hopped online. Brutal!
8 hours remaining for my #WorldofWarcraft #Shadowlands download…. @ATTHelp why is my download speed only 850KB when I pay for your 1GB Fiber package?? #fail
— Alex 🎮 (@ChaosMechanics) November 18, 2020
Clearly I‘m not alone in my displeasure! So what can we do about it?
Tweaks to Boost Your Speeds
Don‘t give up yet! Depending on your setup, some or all of these gaming download speed boosting tricks could help:
Update router and modem firmware – Solve performance bugs, enable newest protocols. I updated my Netgear Nighthawk to latest firmware and saw at least 10% faster wifi speeds.
Ethernet over WiFi – Eliminate interference, congestion. I get 2-3x faster downloads over gigabit ethernet vs WiFi on my gaming laptop, highly recommend.
New router if old – My 6 year old Linksys couldn‘t cut it any more with modern demanding games. Splurged on a Wifi 6 (AX) model and made a huge difference.
Don‘t use while others stream 4K video – Ask politely for them to hold off, get your game patched first 🙂
Close unused programs and browser tabs – They consume precious bandwidth in background. I terminate Steam and Battlenet processes entirely after starting a download for max throughput.
Give some or all of these a try during off peak times and you should achieve much better speeds. Share your download acceleration secrets that I missed in the comments below!
But if you continue struggling even after following the usual tips, it may simply come down to an underpowered internet plan relative to your household‘s gaming needs. Time for an upgrade! Good luck and happy gaming.
