{"id":345623,"date":"2020-03-31T08:22:34","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T06:22:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=345623"},"modified":"2020-03-31T08:24:15","modified_gmt":"2020-03-31T06:24:15","slug":"steam-limits-automatic-game-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/gaming\/345623-steam-limits-automatic-game-updates.html","title":{"rendered":"Steam limits automatic game updates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Steam has <a href=\"https:\/\/steamcommunity.com\/games\/593110\/announcements\/detail\/2074411495515541376\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>made changes<\/strong><\/a> to its auto-update system to spread out the peak load that game downloads have on bandwidth.<\/p>\n<p>Steam has already been scheduling updates for games that users haven&#8217;t played recently for the next off-peak time slot.<\/p>\n<p>Now, however, Steam will spread these updates over several days.<\/p>\n<p>Steam said that only games played within the last three days will be updated immediately<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As always, the game will begin updating immediately if you request to play it, and you can always initiate an update (or pause it indefinitely) through the Download Manager,&#8221; Steam said.<\/p>\n<p>It said it is looking into other measures to help reduce the load the gaming platform has on user bandwidth.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Customising your download schedule<\/h3>\n<p>Steam said that alongside its auto-update changes, there are several other ways of controlling your downloads.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We believe that the best solution for most users is to take advantage of Steam\u2019s existing throttling and scheduling features to set their own optimal behaviour,&#8221; Steam said.<\/p>\n<p>To this end, Steam provided the following tips on how to optimise your download schedule:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Schedule auto-update windows &#8211; this will ensure that Steam doesn&#8217;t begin updating a game during the work day.<\/li>\n<li>If you don&#8217;t play a game in your library often, you can keep it installed but manually choose not to download automatic updates for it.<\/li>\n<li>Self-throttle your connection to Steam. This could ease the load on your network connection, as well as bandwidth loads.<\/li>\n<li>Take advantage of library folders settings by moving infrequently-played games from an SSD to an HDD &#8211; a superior option to uninstalling games and then re-downloading them later.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Massive growth in Xbox gaming<\/h3>\n<p>Microsoft has also <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/gaming\/345469-massive-growth-in-xbox-gaming-traffic-due-to-coronavirus-lockdown.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>noted<\/strong><\/a> a huge increase in demand for its cloud and gaming services because of the COVID-19 coronavirus shutdown.<\/p>\n<p>It reported record numbers on Xbox Live, Xbox Game Pass, and Mixer.<\/p>\n<p>As a result of this, it has disabled the ability to upload custom gamerpics, club pics, and club backgrounds.<\/p>\n<p>The company is also working with game publishers to deliver updates in off-peak hours.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Now read: <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/gaming\/345469-massive-growth-in-xbox-gaming-traffic-due-to-coronavirus-lockdown.html\" rel=\"bookmark\">Massive growth in Xbox gaming traffic due to coronavirus lockdown<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Steam has made changes to its auto-update system to spread out the peak load that game downloads have on bandwidth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341039,"featured_media":241946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[62808,63397,3602,63913],"class_list":["post-345623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gaming","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-steam","tag-steam-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345623"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341039"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345623"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":345659,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345623\/revisions\/345659"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}