Steam download & update manager.

[Solitarius]

Hi,

This is my first post and a suggestion for future steam releases at the same time.

These days you can buy lots of games trough steam, which is good, but at the same time this brings a problem. Cause games are quickly 4-8 Gb's each. Here in Belgium with the provider called 'Telenet' who limits our available volume every month. But at the same time they use a kind of 'happy hours'. In this period (from 0 AM untill 10 AM) we're able to download for only half the measured data transfered. (For example: when you download 2 games from steam at 02:00 AM for a total of 10 Gb, only 5 Gb is added to your monthly limit)

Unfortunately you can't tell steam when to download/update games.
This would improve my monthly ability to re-download my entire steam list (which is quite big these day (± 65Gb) in just over a month, instead of 3 months ...

A simple planner where you can enter at what time a day Steam should check for steam- and game-updates and possibility to make a download schedule for at what time to download and what time to stop downloading would be great for many people.

Thanks for reading :)

[gibblabraven]

Hi am new to the forums too... i think you have a point... i am familiar with other download programs that have download schedules like you describe... they alow you to specify at what times and days you want to be downloading or even uploading... you can setup a schedule for a whole week... I think its a good idea..:)

[Toto pectore]

Yep, that's old time request - advanced download manager. Especially when auto-update system is working weirdly is some kind of download manager highly estimated.

[phoenix5]

Download manager is another popular request in this forum. Seems like a lot of people would benefit from this feature. I've never seen any one oppose it. Who knows, maybe someone at Valve will notice this time around.

Control over when and how downloads happen would seem to be a basic component of any software distribution system.

[Solitarius]

Yup, that's the reason i'm proposing it :)

[Ryden]

+rep

This is the exact thing i searched the forum for before i posted :)

Its the same problem with me.. having to get up early to start a download and then wake up again to stop the download... its like BLAH, utorrent plox >_>

[KralHigham]

The download system in steam pretty much sucks at the moment. It cant even freaking pause an active download properly.

[natronomonas]

Have to throw my vote for a better download manager too. Purchased the THQ pack in the recent sale - a lot of gigs to download! Same as in the OP, we get 'offpeak' times when you can download more/on a special offpeak quota. Practically every bandwidth intensive (and even some not so much, eg BOINC) program lets you schedule these days - so why not Steam??
Allow an override if you're in a hurry for a game, but otherwise, simply set the download for 2-7am or whatever when it's not going to affect any other network users in your house, and take advantage of offpeak etc... but apparently it's too hard...?!

[natronomonas]

...having just got up at 3am 3 nights running to download some of the games as mentioned above, I felt the need to reiterate how useful a download manager would be. Set and forget... and having just bought a whole bunch of new games in the New Year sale, which all seem to have even bigger downloads, I can't see this issue getting any less significant, especially as even N. American ISPs start throttling/limiting downloads.

[leveller]

Mucho needed!

[ZGeek]

I would like this also. I can only download large files from 2am to 9am.

Makes it hard to try demos and purchase games as it usually maxes out my internet for the month.

Please add it!!

[velsoft]

+1 want more download options

[silasary]

I get 120GB (per month) of downloads from 3am to 10am, and 40GB for the rest of the day. A scheduler would be much appreciated.

[ShadowDust702]

I Agree, just downloading tropico now, and im looking at my bill for this month knowing i cant afford it lol, but i get free downloads between 2am and 8am

[talsemgeest]

A big +1 to this, it would be an immeasurable help in grabbing my games, and if steam was to add a download manager I would be much more likely to buy more games. ;)

[Malygris]

Add my vote to this too. I don't really have the bandwidth to support huge updates while I'm trying to get work done during the day, so it'd be fantastically useful if I could set Steam to update only during the wee hours of the morning.

[richie01]

heh.. if off peak is that big a deal to you then learn how to use Autoit.

Autoit is the f**king Sh*t for me when it comes to off peak downloading..

with just some very basic understanding of how to write a script in autoit I can schedule any kind of download.

You can schedule a steam download with a very very basic script.

I'll show you an example for anyone who looks into it.

If it's 12pm and you want it to start at 2pm (3600000 = one hour)

#RequireAdmin

;hot keys :
HotKeySet("{F5}" , "start countdown")
HotKeySet("{F8}" , "Quit")

While 1
sleep(1)
WEnd

Func start countdown()
While 1
Sleep(7200000) ; two hours
MouseMove(101,101) ; moves mouse to steam icon
MouseClick("left") ; left clicks mouse button
MouseClick("left") ; left clicks mouse button again
MouseClick("left") ; left clicks mouse button to make sure
Sleep(100000) ; Sleep for 1 minute or two untill steam opens to make sure its open
;put some more stuff down here to select library and start download then once the download is started you can tell it to sleep for 5 hours
;then it's as easy as closing steam and shuttingdown PC.
Wend
EndFunc


func quit()
Exit 0
EndFunc
Sleep(5000)
Wend
EndFunc


This is just an example. I'm making one to schedule L4D2 download tonight ill check back on the forum later.

If anyone would like a copy of my final script to schedule a steam download just let me know and ill post it here. It will be very basic but 100% effect so long as you are connected to the internet and running windows 7 or windows vista.

With 15 mins training in Autoit language you can edit my script or even make your own to use for steam or other downloads, even rapidshare downloads etc.

[Glaucus]

Though that script is pretty handy, I am going to toss a vote up for Steam to implement a download manager. Not all of us will want to write scripts. =)

My situation is that my new ISP will be providing 200mb every 24 hours for downloading with a grace period between 2am and 7am.

Thankfully my cost will not go up, but my speed will be reduced if that limit is exceeded.

I definitely think a more advanced download manager for Steam would be an excellent thing for Valve to work on.

[undertow100]

Everyone, there is another way to force steam to act like a scheduled download manager. This definitely works in Windows 7 Home Premium, should work and be of almost identical protocol on Windows Vista, and can work in Windows XP (although I have no XP installation in which to write accurate instructions).

In my example I will write this for my ISP (Slingshot New Zealand) who offer unmetered downloading between 0200-0800hrs daily on my 40gb plan. Therefore the goal is to start steam at 0200hrs, and have steam download until 0800hrs, then stop.

Firstly always make sure that before you close Steam that anything you may want to download is queued to download, and downloading as you close Steam (eg - not paused). That way when Steam is next running it will automatically resume downloading - obviously this covers the download managing part. Now all we need to do is ensure that Steam runs at times we want it to run.

Click Start, and type into the start menu scheduled

The start menu item you are prompted with of interest is Schedule tasks - click it.

On the right hand side under Actions click Create Basic Task.

In the first dialog box give it a meaningful name, and if you like enter a description.

eg - I called mine Steam0200
Click Next


Next you are queried regarding the frequency you want the task to start. My answer here obviously is Daily

Choose your appropriate answer eg - Daily
Incidentally if you like to save power by turning your PC off rather than leaving it on waiting for the download time to arrive, your BIOS may have an alarm clock setting where you may wake it up every day by itself. If you did this you could still choose daily and simply schedule the task to start a few minutes after the computer boots.
Click next


When using Daily you are next queried regarding the first calendar incidence, and the regular interval time of the task - ; (I can't write about weekly or every example - apologies).If you selected Weekly etc it's probably a similar protocol.


As my ISP essentially makes the downloads at the start of a day, I will enter tomorrow’s date (at the time of writing 5/2/2011 | dd/mm/yyyy).
In my example in the next field I enter a time of 01:57:30 a.m.

There are two reasons why I start earlier than 0200hrs.

I want Steam to start before uTorrent does at 0200hrs, so Steam can ‘claim it’s stake’ in the bandwidth before uTorrent grabs a hold of it and never lets go. I find that if uTorrent is running Steam often claims it cannot connect to the server.
Steam often updates itself and I am accomodating for this by jumping the gun on the off-peak download time. I am willing spend a bit of bandwidth updating Steam so I can download more of the precious games during the off-peak bandwidth time.




I want this to happen every day, therefore in the third field I enter Recur every: 1 days.
Click next


Click next again


You want some explanation? Start a program is highlighted by default and we want to Start a program


Either Browse for or enter the full path and filename to the Steam client.

You may be able to copy and paste the following with success

%programfiles%\Steam\Steam.exe
Or if you prefer "C:\Program Files\Steam\Steam.exe"


If neither of those work then chances are you manually selected a different directory in which to install Steam. Hopefully you know this, if you don’t know this then I suggest finding your normal Steam shortcut (a Pinned to the Taskbar Steam lacks this step - try a Desktop or Start Menu shortcut) and right clicking it then selecting Properties, it should load with the Target already highlighted. Copy this entire Target field and paste it into the Program/script field in the Create Basic Task Wizard dialog box.
Click next


This screen merely summarises the created task. If the details are correct proceed by clicking Finish otherwise go back and correct erroneous data.
Return to the Task Scheduler and in the most left hand panel click Task Scheduler Library
In the centre pane, find your newly created task, right click it and select properties. The most important thing to set up is in the Settings tab.

Stop the task if it runs for longer than

and here you just enter a setting based on maths. I said earlier from 0200-0800hrs, therefore 6 hours. So I’d simply type 6 hours.

Within the various options on the page it prompts you other durations you may enter.




And you are done once you click ok.

If you are adventurous I would definitely recommend clicking of every tab of the task property, and reading every setting. Some of them may be useful to you eg - wake the computer to run this task.





So essentially the science behind what we've done is administrate a program so that when that program runs it automatically downloads, and administrate Windows to start that program at a certain time and stop it once a certain time duration has lapsed. So, does it work?

To test the above, I created a test task which was exactly the same program and protocol, but took place a few minutes after creating it and was supposed to last 5 minutes then terminate Steam, I left Steam with all the downloads on but exited it.Sure enough, the time rolled around - Steam started all by itself, five minutes later the program closed successfully. Thanks Microsoft for getting something right.

Furthermore this morning when I got up at 0700hrs I came and checked my Steam - sure enough significant downloading had occured, there was no doubt in my mind Steam had been downloading since it's scheduled start time nearly five hours earlier. As I was finalising writing this 0800hrs rolled by, and sure enough Steam closed and therefore ceased downloading. What a result!

If anyone has a Windows XP installation and would like to reverse engineer my protocol and write instructions - that would be very nice, all due credit to you.

[leveller]

If Steam were to have the bandwidth limiter, scheduled start/stop downloading and PC shutdown, I think it would revolutionise Steam and how we use it.

What with the restrictions for Canadas users, I don't know how that would affect Steam users?

[ShavedApe]

I too would like to see this implemented Virgin media impose bandwidth restrictions on p2p programs between certain times and steam apparently falls into that category. Please allow us to schedule when steam downloads/auto updates.

[AgusL]

This has been announced weeks ago: Link (http://store.steampowered.com/news/5856/)

[awes0meaxel]

This has been announced weeks ago: Link (http://store.steampowered.com/news/5856/)

yes, but all they did was make it faster. we need a real download manager. i vote for manager :D

[AgusL]

yes, but all they did was make it faster. we need a real download manager. i vote for manager :D

They are implementing it. Read carefully through the paragraphs.

In addition, the new content system will allow us to build several new features that we’ve often heard requested. Upcoming client releases will include things like download scheduling, bandwidth throttling, and prioritizing which games get downloaded first. You’ll also be able to download an update to a game while you’re playing that game; Steam will apply the update after you exit the game.

[VeganFanatic]

Here in Canada there was a big flap over the ISP desires to sharply increase rates for heavy downloaders.

They also had ridiculous download limits.

I posted protests across the country with the regulators who ended up favoring consumers.

Used to be 60 GB limit is now 250 GB and plans with a lot more bandwidth are now available with a top plan at $120 with no limit at all.

The top plan is ideal for torrent users who want to download everything in sight.

In other places governments side with providers who are against the people.

Here in Canada the net is a free for all. It legal to download terabytes of MP3s