Question on Downloading While Playing

Sandvich · 07-04-2010, 08:46 PM

Well the steam sale is immensely popular and I bought more games than I can download in a year.

Is there a way I can play a certain game without having steam pausing all the other downloads in progress? Its very annoying because I have almost no games outside of steam anymore.

MADDOGGE · 07-04-2010, 08:59 PM

I think you can start the game and tab out of the game restart the download and then go back to the game and it will continue to download. I have never done it though. I usually dl at night while sleeping.

SteeJan · 07-04-2010, 09:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MADDOGGE

I think you can start the game and tab out of the game restart the download and then go back to the game and it will continue to download. I have never done it though. I usually dl at night while sleeping.

Same here, I set all my downloads on and let it inch them all to completion.

Your idea works, but only for a little bit. It randomly pauses them frequently while playing. :\

MADDOGGE · 07-04-2010, 09:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteeJan

Same here, I set all my downloads on and let it inch them all to completion.

Your idea works, but only for a little bit. It randomly pauses them frequently while playing. :\

It does huh? Well thats what I could remember others said they did in this situation. As I said I've never done it myself.

MarkG · 07-04-2010, 10:04 PM

Mine has always done that before, but it now seems to have stopped pausing downloads while playing; I'm not sure how that happened, but I just got a message that another game had finished downloading while I was in the middle of playing L4D2.

Or perhaps Valve games have always allowed downloads to continue as they know what the bandwidth requirements are and it's only non-Valve games that pause the downloads?

ppg113 · 07-04-2010, 10:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarkG

Mine has always done that before, but it now seems to have stopped pausing downloads while playing; I'm not sure how that happened, but I just got a message that another game had finished downloading while I was in the middle of playing L4D2.

Or perhaps Valve games have always allowed downloads to continue as they know what the bandwidth requirements are and it's only non-Valve games that pause the downloads?

From my experience all game downloads are halted once you begin a game or if you install a game.

You can indeed alt-tab and resume your downloads and it should continue until you start up a game again regardless of what game it is.

07-04-2010, 08:46 PM	#1
Sandvich Join Date: Dec 2008 Reputation: 14 Posts: 681	Question on Downloading While Playing Well the steam sale is immensely popular and I bought more games than I can download in a year. Is there a way I can play a certain game without having steam pausing all the other downloads in progress? Its very annoying because I have almost no games outside of steam anymore.

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07-04-2010, 08:59 PM	#2
MADDOGGE Join Date: Jan 2008 Reputation: 8146 Posts: 25,021	I think you can start the game and tab out of the game restart the download and then go back to the game and it will continue to download. I have never done it though. I usually dl at night while sleeping.

07-04-2010, 10:04 PM	#5
MarkG Join Date: Nov 2004 Reputation: 147 Posts: 708	Mine has always done that before, but it now seems to have stopped pausing downloads while playing; I'm not sure how that happened, but I just got a message that another game had finished downloading while I was in the middle of playing L4D2. Or perhaps Valve games have always allowed downloads to continue as they know what the bandwidth requirements are and it's only non-Valve games that pause the downloads?