Steam Downloads.

[bulletmagnet123]

When downloading things off steam like the new mods or games or whatever when you go in game... the download stops. But i don't want it to stop... So what steam needs to do is give an option "Would you like to continue the download in game?" Not hard... Also the downloads stop when in single player games...

I play single player games when I'm downloading something to kill time, but the downloads won't go!!! So i have to play -windowed, then i have to start the download while I'm in game by Alt-Tabbing out and make sure it keeps going....

Also ANOTHER REALLY ANNOYING THING. Is that for some downloads when you pause them, it's not really pausing them. What it should say instead of pause is "Delete all the data you downloaded for 6 hours and restart" because that's what it's doing. When you click Resume it's at 0% when it was at 60% before you "Paused" it.

So Steam needs to classify all the single player games as single player so that when you have a download going, Steam won't go "Oh he's playing a game, stop the download" but really it should say, "Oh he's playing a game, but it's single player, so i won't stop the download for his convenience"

For games such as Garry's mod the "Would you like to continue downloading in game?" would be a good idea because some people play single player and, some are online. So when you click launch, and you have a download going it should say

"You are currently downloading content. Would you like to continue downloading in game?" yes or no, This should've been like this from the beginning, but we all make mistakes. SO FIX EM! lol.

I think this is a REALLY REALLY good idea And it should happen!

[Sn1p3rGT]

+1
message too short need 10 chars

[CmdBash]

+2

nice idea

[sworddude101]

I third that idea. +3

[LicenseToThrill]

This should have been part of steam since the beginnning. +4

[Fergurs]

How do i add rep, when you tell me +5

[leveller]

Good stuff. I was playing single-player Civ3 the other day for about 4 hours and could have had my downloads going.

I would be very happy for Steam to alert me when I launch a game "You are downloading, would you like to carry on downloading while playing your game? yes ( ) no ( )"

[DJDimension]

Yeah that would be nice, i wonder why its not impemented already? Its easy i think. With the next Patch that funktion must come in ^^.

[WimpB]

Another suggestion is to make a scheduler. I'd prefer to have my games downloaded overnight so it won't use up my bandwidth during the day when I'm using my computer.

[leveller]

Another suggestion is to make a scheduler. I'd prefer to have my games downloaded overnight so it won't use up my bandwidth during the day when I'm using my computer.

Combine the scheduler suggestion with the bandwidth-limiter suggestion and the confirm-downloading-during-playing suggestion = win!

[hassani9]

Definite win.... and also i got a real slow download speed and i got hardly anything else to do other than playing on my pc and this would really solve alo... no tons of my problems! common steam u gotta implement this!

[ImBack87]

Agreed. You should be given an option to either stop or continue with your download when you launch a game...

[Epsilon]

Considering that game downloads are supposed to be Steam's core functionality, they haven't got enough love in a long, long while.

Things needed:

Scheduling
Bandwidth limits
Shutdown when done
Delta patches (i.e. only download changes to files, not whole files)
More intelligent download pausing upon going in-game
(Maybe) In-game download controls
Stage-and-commit patches, so games aren't broken (e.g. for offline mode) by incomplete patch downloads

[psychob]

Great Idea
+6

[senior pino]

I googled this topic cus I was angry I couldn't play a single singleplayer game on my computer because then my steam download stops downloading...

+1 to the OP

[Actual_X29]

Also googled this and found your thread. My internet is slow, downloads take a day or two, this is time I can't play anything!

[Corrodias]

You can have steam continue downloading by returning to Steam while the game is running and pausing+resuming the download. You'd have to do this every time you launch a game.

Bandwidth limiting sounds useful for a lot of people.
Scheduling should be useful for some people.
Having an option to download while you're playing would be a welcome addition as well.

The rest doesn't sound as important, but i don't really know what people with limited download plans have to put up with.

[jarulezz13]

+∞
great idea

[Shifty Pete]

I agree. I too have this problem.

I don't know what you're talking about with pausing/resuming downloads there. Never happens with me. It resumes from where I paused it.

[kleril]

Good idea, hope this is all fixed ASAP.
Also, +1 to OP.

[Taktik]

+1 good idea

[Freyar]

"Delete all the data you downloaded for 6 hours and restart" because that's what it's doing. When you click Resume it's at 0% when it was at 60% before you "Paused" it.

0% of what's left, not 0% of the entire game. -_-

[Tigax]

I'm amazed it took 17 posters before someone finally either figured it out, or said something

[Sgt_Pepper]

Agree to this idea, let's bump this thing!!

[shresht93]

Yeh, sounds good to me.

[A N1nja]

Indubitably :D

+7

[lastlucario]

This thread needs a bump.
Found it while googling...
I'm playing Mass Effect and I almost finished it.
I'd like to finish downloading Mass Effect 2 in time, but I can't since I can't download while playing...

/signed

[runnane]

+1 to OP.
I was certain Steam had this functionality, but I guess I was mistaken - about every MMO has it, so why not Steam...

[Dr.Jones]

Yes, we need this feature ASAP.

br.
Dr.Jones

[ReVoluS]

I understand this feature is nice when playing Online games as it won't cause Lag due to bandwidth usage.

However, there's no point of doing so when playing offline games, i also know that steam keeps tracking game data for Achievements and play time, still there should be an option in the settings to allow the downloads and playing at the same time.

[Dogofwars]

+1 for the download while playing.

For some reason they don't want to add it, I requested that a while ago. Oh well they is some competition going their way, maybe they will change their mind when they will have it in their face.

[Dogofwars]

Keep it on top this is a most have

[pez0]

I need this :eek:

[Roxor]

How hard could it be to present the user with a dialogue box along these lines:

You are currently downloading. Do you want to pause the downloads while you play this game?

[ ] Remember this choice for all future launches of this game.

[Yes] [No]

[Em0T0ast]

Yea, I hate that really needs to be fixed/updated/changed.

[burpleronnie]

+69

a haiku for steam:

needs to be added
really sucks balls
using windows live now
haha only joking

[NabsterHax]

Lol, with the old steam it used to do the complete opposite of what i wanted. If i wanted to play a multiplayer game, i would pause al the downloads then open the game. Then they would start downloading in-game! But if i just left them downloading, they would stop when i entered the game. Strange...

[kwaehawche]

+1
It's very helpful especially when you have a lot of games need to download.you can't do anything but wait during downloading or it will pause.Add a download in game option is not difficult to set for these software engineers,please add this option!

[burpleronnie]

[Temporary Fix]

you can do it manualy by Alt-tabing out of a game then pausing and unpausing the download. you have to do this everytime yu enter a game however and gets a bit tedious.

technically steam can easily implement it, just put a download priority tickbox in the properties of each game and have a global ovrride in the main settings tab. easy as pie.

[Ascot]

+1

Dear Valve software engineers <3 :)

PLEASE:

Add a "Pause all" Button which immediately pauses all Steam game updates.
Default setting at login should be "all paused".
Just add a short popup at login only to show an update is available.

Imo the user should decide when to update unless its absolutely necessary (like engine updates).
It´s his pc,his bandwith and his time or not?

And btw...updating while in an ONLINE game is nonsense in 99.9% of cases.
Who srsly wants a ping +200 ingame because of downloading updates...cmon


p.s.

Im happy to see the download region and speed i have set isn´t changing every day anymore.
There´s even a city name added to some content server descriptions,great
One step further to a bit more transparency concerning download server description and Steam networking background activities :)

[Syldan]

Considering that game downloads are supposed to be Steam's core functionality, they haven't got enough love in a long, long while.

Things needed:

Scheduling
Bandwidth limits
Shutdown when done
Delta patches (i.e. only download changes to files, not whole files)
More intelligent download pausing upon going in-game
(Maybe) In-game download controls
Stage-and-commit patches, so games aren't broken (e.g. for offline mode) by incomplete patch downloads


+1, mostly for bandwidth limit... damn Fallout 3 is going to make me bankrupt updating the whole 7Gb game for a language change. It wouldn't hurt my connection much even if it was downloading at a lower speed while I'm playing some multiplayer game that isn't updating.

[RaEyE]

I really do support the request for a remoddeled download feature.
Sometimes its really anoying.
I just remember L4D2 downloading an update and completely blocking the use of L4D2, just for downloading a update.

Why don't download the update and then install it seperately after the user acknowledged the install.
Maybe a notfication in the games-list could be implemented to show, that the updtae was downloaded.
So if the user acknowledges it or steam is beeing restarted the update will be installed.
Another possibility would be to install the update while steam is idel, or the user plays another game.

Therefore the user should be given the possibility to decide if he will allow steam to install updates while beeing in-game. (Performance issues)

Greetz
RaEyE

[Daath]

Up you go! I just hate alt + tabbing out of a singleplayer game.

[BlueLegion]

More intelligent download pausing upon going in-game


YES. my steam downloads pause on EVERY single player game that dont need any bandwith, but when im playing TF2 online, the downloads just continue, creating a ping of over 9000 (literally)

[Morboth]

This thread deserves a huge... UP! :cool:

[Amander]

Steam does pause the download. It always means "0% of what's left". Dammit, this has been brought up about 100 times, why do people refuse to search?

[hup]

Considering that game downloads are supposed to be Steam's core functionality, they haven't got enough love in a long, long while.

Things needed:

Scheduling
Bandwidth limits
Shutdown when done
Delta patches (i.e. only download changes to files, not whole files)
More intelligent download pausing upon going in-game
(Maybe) In-game download controls
Stage-and-commit patches, so games aren't broken (e.g. for offline mode) by incomplete patch downloads



Yes like it

[tharglet]

Considering that game downloads are supposed to be Steam's core functionality, they haven't got enough love in a long, long while.

Things needed:

Scheduling
Bandwidth limits
Shutdown when done
(Maybe) In-game download controls


These are the ones I agree with on Epsilon's list. "Intelligent" downloading may not work so well (had poor experiences with apps trying to be intelligent with the download speeds) - esp for non-steam shortcuts, but it'd be nice to be able to say either keep the downloads going, or be able to control them from the ingame Steam overlay. (at least a resume or pause all button).

Yeah, I can alt tab, but this can cause a few games to crash or go odd. Once was trying to get some downloads to unpause during a game launched from a non-steam shortcut and it refused to play ball - ended up having to go traipsing round for the .exe, as I tend to put all my shortcuts in steam for convenience's sake.

[Amander]

Asking the user upon game launch if the download should go on or not seems like a good thing.

[ultio]

Yep, sounds like a good idea. Currently I always have to minimize the game I want to play right after starting it. If you pause updating and then continue the download, Steam will download while you're in-game. This isn't really... 'comfortable', though.

[biltong]

Considering that game downloads are supposed to be Steam's core functionality, they haven't got enough love in a long, long while.

Things needed:

Scheduling
Bandwidth limits
Shutdown when done
Delta patches (i.e. only download changes to files, not whole files)
More intelligent download pausing upon going in-game
(Maybe) In-game download controls
Stage-and-commit patches, so games aren't broken (e.g. for offline mode) by incomplete patch downloads

This^4535413541365436541
If valve implement this, maybe, just maybe I'll think about supporting their product again. I've had enough trouble with steam already, this might fix things.

[burpleronnie]

Steam does pause the download. It always means "0% of what's left". Dammit, this has been brought up about 100 times, why do people refuse to search?

reading the thread actually helps too.

[MeAndMyDemons]

bump and bring these updates in!!! ^^ +1

[discrider]

I too want these updates.

[hutzdani]

Hell yeah agree with the original poster, i wa splaying mass effect 2 for two hours thinking f1 2010 was downloading so when i finished playing and looked at steam it had paused after it was doing 1.1mb a sec ! damn steam sort it out !

[mkey]

I always assumed this was connected with server load as it would happen only sporadically.

[Shifty Pete]

Why hasn't this already been added?

If you're worried about the file size of steam, you could put it in the tools menu as an "Advanced downloader tool". how hard is it?

[Kill3rism]

This is a great Idea! I agree!

If it helps, I'll sign it.

~The Pie~

Edit: I dont know why this hasnt been added yet... Steam could REALLY use a Suggestions 'Box' or thread.

[mibso]

I agree.. some games don't minimize (Jedi Academy :mad:) and some don't like to be minimized and then maximized (MDK :p).. and it really needs to be added.. at least in the in-game menu to check progress and start/stop a download.. it would be great.

[SayaSe]

Bump for great justice.

[SonicHdgTrimmer]

Things needed:

Scheduling
Bandwidth limits
Shutdown when done
Delta patches (i.e. only download changes to files, not whole files)
More intelligent download pausing upon going in-game
(Maybe) In-game download controls
Stage-and-commit patches, so games aren't broken (e.g. for offline mode) by incomplete patch downloads


This would be of great use to many people, i would love to see these features.

[Ricardo_73]

I agree with this thread.

[MauroR]

This would be of great use to many people, i would love to see these features.
* Scheduling
* Bandwidth limits
* Shutdown when done
* Delta patches (i.e. only download changes to files, not whole files)
* More intelligent download pausing upon going in-game
* (Maybe) In-game download controls
* Stage-and-commit patches, so games aren't broken (e.g. for offline mode) by incomplete patch downloads

Exactly what I want too. Also because it's annoying to download an entire game just for changing the language.

[Rafael-FX]

Considering that game downloads are supposed to be Steam's core functionality, they haven't got enough love in a long, long while.

Things needed:

Scheduling
Bandwidth limits
Shutdown when done
Delta patches (i.e. only download changes to files, not whole files)
More intelligent download pausing upon going in-game
(Maybe) In-game download controls
Stage-and-commit patches, so games aren't broken (e.g. for offline mode) by incomplete patch downloads



+1 In-game download controls would be the cake

[wormmayhem]

+1
nice idea

[DKant]

++1 :)

"* More intelligent download pausing upon going in-game"

This would be a relatively simple, and a pretty good, start!

[pl1149]

I love this idea, but while we're waiting for this to happen, there is a (somewhat inconvenient) way around this if you run your games in windowed mode (at least I've done it before).

1) All the downloads show as "suspended." Go and "pause all"
2) Once all downloads show as "paused," click on "resume all"

Please implement OP's idea.

[Thermal#2]

I didnt even notice it stops.
Should be there already

[mojoes]

+ ♥♥♥♥ing 1

I just played SF4 for an hour and a half and literally yelled irl when I found out I'd forgotten that the download had stopped while playing singleplayer... aggravating as ♥♥♥♥.

[icStatic]

+1, this 'stop while playing' behavior made sense back in the olden Counterstrike days when a high proportion of people had 56k modems and not broadband, but with games reading into the tens of gigs now, not being able to download while playing is fairly irritating.

[Brunftzeit]

Considering that game downloads are supposed to be Steam's core functionality, they haven't got enough love in a long, long while.

Things needed:

Scheduling
Bandwidth limits
Shutdown when done
Delta patches (i.e. only download changes to files, not whole files)
More intelligent download pausing upon going in-game
(Maybe) In-game download controls
Stage-and-commit patches, so games aren't broken (e.g. for offline mode) by incomplete patch downloads


/signed

I have only 3 MBit and have to pay the power bill myself. Last time i was starting Steam it wants to download 4 GB to update some games... WTF? Are they serious?

I use Getright as download manager for many years now. It can shutdown my PC, has bandwidth limits, etc. This piece of software is much older than steam. Its annoying that a sales platform for games with the size of several gigabyte has such a "minimalistic" download component without any comfort for users with low bandwith. :mad:

[Hendrich]

*Bump*

Valve, we need this.

[Amander]

Yup, I'd like Steam not to pause downloads. Speaking about... Downloading stuff while playing a game online is perfectly possible with BITS. It's not avaible on MacOS though. But on Windows, BITS offer a cheap way to let the system handle the downloads so it works as fast as possible without disturbing anything.

[Bilateralrope]

Good stuff. I was playing single-player Civ3 the other day for about 4 hours and could have had my downloads going.

I would be very happy for Steam to alert me when I launch a game "You are downloading, would you like to carry on downloading while playing your game? yes ( ) no ( )"

Better idea, have the game developer put their game into one of three categories:
- Always download. Games with very little online components, meaning having downloads running will not affect it. For example, Half Life 2 or Portal.
- Never download. Games with significant online components, meaning the downloads will cause problems. Such as Team Fortress 2.
- Ask. Games that go into one or the other depending on what the player does. Almost anything with single and multi player components.

For existing games, place them in the never download category unless the developer says otherwise.

Valve could also develop an addition to the Steam API so that games in the ask category can tell Steam when to stop downloads. But that will require work from all developers to implement into their game.

[Acetyl]

Agree entirely, I've wanted something like this for a long time. Strikes me as odd that the downloading portion of steam seems to do whatever it wants, very little control.

[Devnant]

+1

It really is a pain having to alt+tab to resume downloads. Please give some more download options.

[Stracius]

Considering that game downloads are supposed to be Steam's core functionality, they haven't got enough love in a long, long while.

Things needed:

Scheduling
Bandwidth limits
Shutdown when done
Delta patches (i.e. only download changes to files, not whole files)
More intelligent download pausing upon going in-game
(Maybe) In-game download controls
Stage-and-commit patches, so games aren't broken (e.g. for offline mode) by incomplete patch downloads


++
Though I'd be happy with just an option to not pause downloads whenever I launch a game.

[Guru-Ex]

+1
message to short...

[Kou]

Just a tip if no one has noticed this.

You can alt+tab from game, go to your download menu, and set it to start downloading again, then pop pack into your single player campaign while steam goes about its business in the background.

A couple people most likely beat me to this, but it is still good to know.

[shresht93]

We need download controls in the in-game overlay.

[hailtomichigan]

i do this all the time and it works.

step 1 launch your game

step 2 when game is at main menu hit the Windows key (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_key) so you return to desktop

step 3 hit resume download

step 4 play your game

its easy as that.

P.S. don't need to play in -windowed mode

[Acetyl]

i do this all the time and it works.

step 1 launch your game

step 2 when game is at main menu hit the Windows key (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_key) so you return to desktop

step 3 hit resume download

step 4 play your game

its easy as that.

P.S. don't need to play in -windowed mode
Many many many many games don't recover from that method.

[hailtomichigan]

Many many many many games don't recover from that method.

like what ones i never had a problem with any steam game multi-player or singleplayer using this method

[spiderwebby]

make it so!
(also: bandwidth limit?)

[Sorgen]

definitely like this idea, resuming downloads is quite annoying especially with my game a.d.d

[sam_w]

It would be nice to be able to do it from the in-game overlay, not hard for them to implement either!

[Doomsy]

This is a great idea +7

[Xcone]

So simple, yet it would add soo much. +8

[SkoZombie]

It amazes me after all this time, with downloading being such a critical part of steam, that it doesn't have better functionality!

The key issues I see are:
1. Playing while downloading without annoying work arounds
2. Throttling downloads (which would help with managing pings while playing)
3. Scheduling - So you can leave steam running and only have it update when you're usually away
4. Prioritising - so your favourite new purchase downloads first

To Valve's credit, they have fixed a lot of bugs, like losing your download progress on crashes, but steam still needs a lot of work, and deserves it for all the money it would be bringing in for Valve!

[tFighterPilot]

God damnit, just played Just Cause 2 waiting for Shogun's 2 demo to download (which could be done by now) only to discover it's still on 21%. I google searched the subject and here I am. So +1

[Irx]

This thread is 3 years old and still nothing done. :mad:

[Acetyl]

This thread is 3 years old and still nothing done. :mad:

Thats valve for ya, gotta love their timetables.

[markcocjin]

I promote this thread! :D

I've always thought that Steam was Ninja Downloading. You know, downloading when there aren't much network activity happening. Even when the download is paused.

Anyways, I would like to also add that maybe they could also have a feature where the game could play itself while I'm staring at the download progress bar.

[Sagenth]

This could be solved by allowing us to customize the in game overlay, which is a new thread started recently

[Ozwit]

BUMP Need scheduled downloads!

[Firebreak]

Honestly, I don't know why some of this hasn't gone in yet. Downloading is one of the main attractions of steam, and you'd think it'd be pretty advanced by now in terms of features

[ijii]

Add another person to the list. I bought a new hard drive and need to download everything again. I also love playing games too, but it seems I can't do both. Help me out Steam/Valve.

[Jagged Tooth]

Add another person to the list. I bought a new hard drive and need to download everything again. I also love playing games too, but it seems I can't do both. Help me out Steam/Valve.
You can always use the workaround till Valve adds native support.

Just alt-tab out of the game, and resume the download in Steam.

[mibso]

Bump.

[sinisterene]

BUMP

Because you steam folks need to see this thread and all the others EVERY SINGLE GODDAM DAY

[Xankara]

Bump the best idea since Steam

[Asylums_Patient]

Great idea, don't know why it hasn't been implemented yet.

[fro01]

Bumping cuz its nearly 4 years old and still nothing done, also id like to mention the broken games backuper which has been broken for years, i mean comon, who likes having waited 5 hours for the backup to comp[lete, then reinstalling to find that half the games files are missing so there goes a few days of downloading to get it all back

i know theres a workaround of backing up the steamapps folder but it would be nice for any newbs that start using steam and dont know any better

edit: well... this aint almost 4 years old yet but you get my drift

[Redspirit]

I agree, I bumb, because it's players' voice in here!

[Fraxxxi]

I was actually thinking that exact same thing just earlier today. that would be really helpful and, I would imagine, not hard to implement.

[flashn00b]

Like i said, perhaps the problem lies within how Steam itself is coded.

There is a probability that you're asking VALVe to create Steam again from scratch.

[Fraxxxi]

Like i said, perhaps the problem lies within how Steam itself is coded.

There is a probability that you're asking VALVe to create Steam again from scratch.
can't imagine that. all it needs is a checkbox next to "play" to indicate whether or not you want downloads to keep going.

[flashn00b]

can't imagine that. all it needs is a checkbox next to "play" to indicate whether or not you want downloads to keep going.

Who knows. Maybe as a result of bad coding, they may have to rewrite steam with more efficient coding in regards to how downloads are handled.

[chillgreg]

+ ∞

VALVE !!!

[thoronmegil]

+1 and bump. This should be REALLY EASY to implement too...

[duralf]

It's really embarassing that this is not fixed yet. Get to work!

[yellowpop]

Like i said, perhaps the problem lies within how Steam itself is coded.

There is a probability that you're asking VALVe to create Steam again from scratch.

Well what you wrote just caught my attention. Steam is not a hardware. It is a software. Of course this can be fixed. It's not hardwired. Software is the most flexible thing in the whole world.

[celebrimnar]

Agree with the idea, I was about to post the same when I saw the threat. Valve listen to this guy!

[Mauro90]

BUMP for greater justice.

[Victorspain]

Don't want to ruin you "complaining party" guys, but Valve has already stated that this is already fixed in the new Content Delivery System they're gonna release soon (Valve time). So there is no actual need to fix the code they're using now, because they already have a fix, they only need to release it.

If I was planning to buy a new car soon I would care if one of the back windows cannot be opened if repairing it cost 500$. I would just wait for the new car.

[upsketch]

Don't want to ruin you "complaining party" guys, but Valve has already stated that this is already fixed in the new Content Delivery System they're gonna release soon (Valve time). So there is no actual need to fix the code they're using now, because they already have a fix, they only need to release it.

If I was planning to buy a new car soon I would care if one of the back windows cannot be opened if repairing it cost 500$. I would just wait for the new car.

I know it's just a matter of convenience, but if I had to wait a year (OP was 10-13-2010) to get my back windows fixed, I would definitely complain a bit.

I still love my car though; it looks pretty and does amazing things.

[fuskey]

this just happened to me , as the steam Halloween sale came i picked up fear collection and started downloading and since i have a slow net it takes a long while to download anything. As i went into a game to play after downloading these games for 3 days straight something happened and i lost over 15 GB of dl. since both these games pretty much restarted back to 0%...over 3 days of constant dl and all gone cause i wanted to play a game.As you can tell you can see how frustrating that is.

[psv4live]

i like this idea + 1

[emperor_magus]

Considering that game downloads are supposed to be Steam's core functionality, they haven't got enough love in a long, long while.

Things needed:

Scheduling
Bandwidth limits
Shutdown when done
Delta patches (i.e. only download changes to files, not whole files)
More intelligent download pausing upon going in-game
(Maybe) In-game download controls
Stage-and-commit patches, so games aren't broken (e.g. for offline mode) by incomplete patch downloads


Totally agree about the scheduler and the intelligent DL pausing

[lalilulelo]

Bump!

[RyanY]

Yep, really annoying. Should of been sorted by now!

Atleast let the download work when you're playing a game with NO ONLINE FUNCTION

[MonsterGroup]

Combine the scheduler suggestion with the bandwidth-limiter suggestion and the confirm-downloading-during-playing suggestion = win!

I'd like to see all of those features as well.

[EndlessRain3000]

You can Alt+Tab to restart it, and go back to play the game.

[imzgrimreaper]

I completely agree with the following post.

Considering that game downloads are supposed to be Steam's core functionality, they haven't got enough love in a long, long while.

Things needed:

Scheduling
Bandwidth limits
Shutdown when done
Delta patches (i.e. only download changes to files, not whole files)
More intelligent download pausing upon going in-game
(Maybe) In-game download controls
Stage-and-commit patches, so games aren't broken (e.g. for offline mode) by incomplete patch downloads

[XenoX101]

Bumping this because Valve haven't done anything about it and it's such an obvious problem with such an obvious fix, really disappointing in my opinion when you compare it to other download/software managers. I've resorted to no longer running Steam except when I want to play a game because I can't trust that a random update from my 30+ games won't start without my knowledge, and lag whatever I'm doing while sucking up my download limit (yes some people still have download limits).

[Lexiel]

I'm not entirely sure it's all on steam on that issue.
I've had games that didn't pause my downloads.
But I'm not sure if those (amazing and rare) occurrences were the reflection of steam/valve letting game developers decide or just a very nice bug (for once :))

Whichever it is, there are reasons why you wouldn't want to download even when in offline/single player games. It's not just the internet connection that is used, it's also memory I/O. And that could be problematic for some games.

Either way, whether it harms game performance or not, we should be able to chose. Especially paired with bandwidth limitation, I might be willing to deal with higher than desirable ping for a bit if it means I get to do something while I'm downloading a patch or a new game. Of course it's always a good time to put on a DVD or pick up a book too.

[WhiteSenji]

thumbs up for this.