Why does Origin download games so much faster than Steam?

[Phusius]

I get 2.7 mb/s to 3.2 mb/s on Steam consistently, and 7.5 mb/s to 9.3 mb/s on Origin game downloads consistently.

 

[Laurijan]

I guess that the steam server is just not able to give you more speed - might change when there is less traffic.

 

[OneMoar]

Origin lies about its download speeds check your network traffic logs

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Origin lies about its download speeds check your network traffic logs

No it doesn't. from what ive noticed a 9GB game finishes downloading faster on origin then a 9GB downloading on steam.

 

[OneMoar]

No it doesn't. from what ive noticed a 9GB game finishes downloading faster on origin then a 9GB downloading on steam.

considering I had origin telling me it was downloading at 4MB/s and my connection cap is 15mbit ... hMmmhnmmmm

 

[FordGT90Concept]

EA is using a better CDN.

 

[Frick]

considering I had origin tells me it was downloading at 4MB/s and my connection cap is 15mbit ... hMmmhnmmmm

How effective is that cap? I had a 2mbit connection once that I regularly got 10mbit/s out of.

 

[OneMoar]

EA is using a better CDN.

I doubt that ea's servers are dead slow at anything there always overloaded and flaky
ever try and change your EA master profile .... yea ...

 

[Phusius]

Origin lies about its download speeds check your network traffic logs

No I checked and it is not lying about the speeds, downloaded Dragon Origins 30gb almost in total at super fast speeds. (I did the math and the Origin times were correct)


And Steam is that 2.7-3.2 anytime of day or night. Sucks, kind of an Origin fanboy now.

 

[RejZoR]

Origin doesn't have as many users as Steam so they also don't have as many server load problems.

 

[NC37]

Origin doesn't have as many users as Steam so they also don't have as many server load problems.

Exactly.

 

[HD64G]

Pretty easy to think of...

 

[HTC]

Origin doesn't have as many users as Steam so they also don't have as many server load problems.

That's a good argument.

Still, Steam probably has accessed the average connections to their site and concluded that the current speeds are sufficient. The problem with this way of thinking is that it neglects the small detail that games are getting bigger and bigger and, with the other small detail that bandwidth availability for home users is increasing allot, what 2 years ago would be considered tremendously fast is now slow as hell.

It's about damn time they update their servers bandwidth, IMO.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I doubt that ea's servers are dead slow at anything there always overloaded and flaky
ever try and change your EA master profile .... yea ...

User authentication is very likely to be EA's dedicated servers, not the CDN.


Additionally, the slow downloads could be due to Steam itself. The code they use for downloading is dodgy at best. I've seen some very, very ackward downloading behavior. It even often ignores user input and there doesn't appear to be anyway to prioritize downloads.

 

[NinkobEi]

Could be because Steam has 4 million users online on an average day. I'm betting Origin has 500k on a good day. But 2.7MB/s is nothing to cry about. Still it takes what, an hour for 10 gigs? less time?

 

[TheMailMan78]

All you have to do is change your download location in steam and BAM faster downloads. I went from 2.5 in Miami to 4.9 in Atlanta.

 

[HTC]

Could be because Steam has 4 million users online on an average day. I'm betting Origin has 500k on a good day. But 2.7MB/s is nothing to cry about. Still it takes what, an hour for 10 gigs? less time?

Around 63 minutes and 12 seconds, by my math.

Question @ OP: you state "mb/s". That stands for Mb/s or MB/s? I'm assuming MB/s.

 

[Widjaja]

You think your steam download speeds are bad, mine is constantly capped at 660kb/ps.

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

In addition to less concurrent users than Steam I always assumed that EA being such a behemoth simply has lots of data center contracts all over the damn place. But that is all speculation and not very technical speculation at that.

 

[Phusius]

Around 63 minutes and 12 seconds, by my math.

Question @ OP: you state "mb/s". That stands for Mb/s or MB/s? I'm assuming MB/s.

I am new to PC stuff in general, I mean when you look at a game in Steam downloading in your Steam Library, it states 2.7 mb/s next to the games name.

 

[stinger608]

I am new to PC stuff in general, I mean when you look at a game in Steam downloading in your Steam Library, it states 2.7 mb/s next to the games name.

Yea that is megabits not megabytes. Most all download speed as well as upload speed is measured in megabits.

But hell, at 2.7 to 3.2 is nothing to sneeze about. I am usually lucky to get 2.0 from anything. And my service claims I am getting 15 mb/s (megabits) service.......Yea right!

 

[HTC]

I am new to PC stuff in general, I mean when you look at a game in Steam downloading in your Steam Library, it states 2.7 mb/s next to the games name.

Yea that is megabits not megabytes. Most all download speed as well as upload speed is measured in megabits.

But hell, at 2.7 to 3.2 is nothing to sneeze about. I am usually lucky to get 2.0 from anything. And my service claims I am getting 15 mb/s (megabits) service.......Yea right!

Then it's not 63 minutes and 12 seconds: it's 9 hours, 25 minutes and 36 seconds and that's slow as hell.

 

[RejZoR]

Well, Steam always maxes my 8Mbit connection. Thats essentially 1MB/s which is fine with me.

 

[NC37]

Could be because Steam has 4 million users online on an average day. I'm betting Origin has 500k on a good day. But 2.7MB/s is nothing to cry about. Still it takes what, an hour for 10 gigs? less time?

Well there is at least 800k who bought the BF3 Premium so at the very least yeah prolly about 500k. But how many buying and using Origin....ehhh unknown. Steam Sale went on and Origin had nothing to compete whereas Amazon ran some game download offers. Few other places did too. I checked Origin a few times during it. Surprised. EA wants to compete but then doesn't run sales...yeah thats sure gonna make people want to buy off Origin more.

 

[erocker]

Origin lies about its download speeds check your network traffic logs

This is true.