Force Steam through specific download server

[stroebs]

Hi forumites,

Does anyone know if it's possible to force Steam to use a particular download server for content? DNS hack maybe?

Steam used to have the option to select which server but I see it has now vanished and replaced with "South Africa - Cape Town"

A bit of background:
I work for an ISP and I get unlimited (up to 1Gbps) on peered traffic to certain ISPs. Most of the time, my Steam resolves to Vox's Steam server, who we don't peer with, so the traffic goes out our breakout and over transit links.

If possible, I'd like to force my Steam to use MWEB's content server as it's ridiculously fast and treated "on-net"

 

[battletoad]

Is it the case that say, 80% of the time it's Vox's server, and 20% of the time its Mweb's server?

If so, you could try to block all outgoing connections to Vox's Steam server with your firewall, be it windows' firewall or otherwise. The same rule can then be applied to any other "off-net" server. It goes without saying that if the Mweb server doesn't support some or other game/application thru steam, you won't be able to run that.

 

[HavocXphere]

http://mygaming.co.za/forum/showthread.php/23093-Steam-amp-WA-Freezone

 

[stroebs]

Is it the case that say, 80% of the time it's Vox's server, and 20% of the time its Mweb's server?

If so, you could try to block all outgoing connections to Vox's Steam server with your firewall, be it windows' firewall or otherwise. The same rule can then be applied to any other "off-net" server. It goes without saying that if the Mweb server doesn't support some or other game/application thru steam, you won't be able to run that.

Tried that, just resorts to overseas servers for some reason. Even tried flushing DNS on PC + router, restarting Steam, etc.

http://mygaming.co.za/forum/showthread.php/23093-Steam-amp-WA-Freezone

Thanks, yeah it's a possible solution. Will have to fiddle with it as it doesn't detect my ISP automatically.

 

[grok]

Not sure if this will help as it's kinda discontinued, but I used to use Frey's steam filter to force steam to a specific server in the local/international bandwidth days.

http://members.iinet.net.au/~chapman.j/

 

[HavocXphere]

Not sure if this will help as it's kinda discontinued, but I used to use Frey's steam filter to force steam to a specific server in the local/international bandwidth days.

http://members.iinet.net.au/~chapman.j/

Designed for previous gen steam network so don't think that'll work

 

[stroebs]

Magically it switched back to MWEB last night and was able to download at 100Mbps. What I don't understand is that we actually do peer with Vox's networks but only "Cape Town" IP ranges, yet the Steam servers are not part of those ranges despite it being selected as a "Cape Town" server.