Arch Linux

bigsad

Member

Registered: 2024-05-09

Posts: 7

Seriously slow download speeds on Steam

Hello all,

Been distro hopping to check out the different flavors of linux and ultimately landed on Arch. All has been pretty ok for the most part but I'm having this issue in Steam where my download speeds are seriously low. I'm connected via WiFi and I have a 1000 mbps down/100 mbps up connection but my games don't ever download at more than ~100 mbps and sometimes it'll tank as low as 4 mbps and almost always hovers around 30 - 50 mbps.

Other distros I tried were Pop_OS and Kubuntu. Kubuntu had a similar issue but it wasn't as bad as Arch. On Kubuntu I was getting maybe about 200 mbps and on Pop I was getting 400 - 500 mbps which was more on par with what I would get on Wndows which would reach as high as 700 mbps

This is a fresh install of Arch using the archinstall script using systemd-boot, NetworkManager, and KDE Plasma I have already verified that everything is updated with

sudo pacman -Syu

I found this article on the Arch docs about Steam  and disabled HTTP2 like it says but that didn't help (even rebooted afterwards) https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/steam# … _downloads

I also found several users from past forum posts suggesting the use of dnsmasq as a dns cache by following this guide https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/dnsmasq#DNS_server but I couldn't get this set up and ended up unable to reach websites the several times I tried getting it going.

I'm at a loss here and would really appreciate some suggestion on what I can do

P.S. because I know if's a common source of confusion, I did in fact verify that my steam download is in Mbps and not MBps. I always set it to Mbps since that's how speed is usually measured and I don't wanna multiply by 8 lol

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 15,085

Re: Seriously slow download speeds on Steam

Could have to do with the wifi driver.

Please install speedtest-cli , then execute speedtest (as normal user) and post the output .

Does your system have an ethernet port ? If yes, does using that give better results ?

---

Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

clean chroot building not flexible enough ?
Try clean chroot manager by graysky

Awebb

Member

Registered: 2010-05-06

Posts: 6,688

Re: Seriously slow download speeds on Steam

1. How did you install Steam? pacman or flatpak? steam or steam-native-runtime?
-> If you're running steam-native-runtime, try the other way according to the wiki.

2. Have you tried a different download region in the Steam settings? Does it default to the same region as on other distros?

3. The FAQ has this, although it might not be super helpful: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Freque … ng_systems?

4. Is Steam the only slow application? Have run other speed tests?

4. Is Steam the only slow