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PS4 download speed. Comcast. 40-59 Mbps. PC 80-85 Mbps. How to fix?

S

Summer Haze

Banned
Before update 2.0 dropped, my PSN speeds were constant and fast. Then they went to shit and now it fluctuates between half of my full speed (around 3MB), and around 400kbps, but stays at the latter for most of the time. It's ridiculous.

Setting my PS4 to 'rest mode' does seem to make my downloads faster, though. Not sure why.
 
Y

Yshi

Neo Member
You guys are not alone, I have a 60mb connection (Brazil) And I still download at crap speed, Steam 6mb/s, Xbox 4mb/s, PSN 600kb...

Yea PSN servers are crap.
 
J

John Caboose

Member
orthodoxy1095 said:
FWIW, I have a 1gb/1gb fiber optic line, but I max out at about 150-200 mbps. I've never been able to get my full speed. PC, I can max out easy, but PS4 seems to be a problem with servers.
Click to expand...

You probably need a new router, I upgraded to a DIR 868 L and get a lot better speeds than my old (circa 2010 model) router Even though they are supposedly both "gigabit routers".

They are computers and they get old and comparatively slower.

Check this for speedtests and more:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/router/view
 
X

Xyber

Member
hesido said:
Lol, that's faster than what my hard disk can write. How times are changing.. Theoretically, a cloud virtual memory can surpass an old hard disk speed! (granted, it needs to be symmetric)
Click to expand...

Yeah, depending on the download even my HDD can struggle keeping up. Steam pauses the download every now and then saying it's busy writing to disk. SSD prices needs to be lower!
 
M

Mr. Nice_Guy

Member
Aeana said:
I tend to get really slow speeds on PS4 downloads to begin with. As slow as ~250k/s, even. Over time, they speed up to a reasonable rate, but I'm lucky to approach 3.5mb/s, so consider yourself lucky anyway.
Click to expand...

About the same speed I have where I am currently at. I sympathize with wanting it as fast as possible but a side of perspective is also good haha. You have good speeds!
 
K

katsubento

Member
If I had half my speed I'd be thrilled. I get 100 down normally. On PS4, I get anywhere from 7-10 down, but in actuality it goes much slower. A single MB will take ten minutes. Pausing and unpausing does nothing. Different DNS does nothing. Sometimes rest mode will help. Sometimes not.
 
B

Bastos

Member
I don't know if this will work for the ones with crazy download speeds, but I can only download at max speed on PSN by using Privoxy.
 
J

jellies_two

Member
there are a few thinga to say on this

pc download speeds measured by speedtest.net are done with parallel downloads not a single download. This gives an unrealistic result unless you are going to use torrents or steam. Also speedtest steers you to in isp network or hyper local servers, which also help. But mainly, they flood download and upload channels with simultaneous requests.

the ps4 speed you might measure or observe is a single tcp stream and to a server at psn or otherwise that is probably more remote than whatever you test the pc against. The server might also be busy preloading bloodborne or whatever.

So apples to bananas make sure you compare the same thing: speed of a single download, to a server the same latency away! not psn game download speed to pc speedtest.net speed!

if you want to test a single download, pc vs ps4, try http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/simple
or there is also a multi stream download speedtest at
http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest
which will fill your comcast connectiom
however I dont know if the latter one works on the ps4 browser - which lacks more than a few features vs even phone browsers let alone desktop.

Lastly, the ps4 tcp stack may not be configured to be as aggressive as it might be. Normally, osx and linux scales a single tcp stream up a lot more than windows does but I dont know if ps4 bsd has been configured for fast downloads over 50ms+ connections.
 
B

boon

Member
Lukas Japonicus said:
Before update 2.0 dropped, my PSN speeds were constant and fast. Then they went to shit and now it fluctuates between half of my full speed (around 3MB), and around 400kbps, but stays at the latter for most of the time. It's ridiculous.

Setting my PS4 to 'rest mode' does seem to make my downloads faster, though. Not sure why.
Click to expand...
This is true for me also. I immediately noticed fluctuation in speeds after 2.0, and can see it bounce back on the bandwidth monitor when I put the PS4 into Rest Mode.
 
D

D6AMIA6N

Member
This is a problem for me as well. Atlanta Xfinity (ComCast)

@ jellies_two, thank you for the more technical explanation, sounds like you know your stuff!
 
G

GReeeeN

Member
I think this whole download speed on PSN is overblown...

how much sooner do you want your content? 40-50Mbps is 5MB/ per second... which is still pretty damn fast...

seeing as though most big games these days allow pre-loading, 30-40gb games take 1h at max..

I agree, it doesn't max out our internet connections, I'm on 100Mpbs, but 50Mbps is more than enough for me on ps4...
 
K

kvn

Member
I have a 150mbit connection and the PS4 is wired. I get laughable 40 mbit at max. Most of the times even slower, but it seems to download way faster when it's in rest mode.
 
G

Gattsu25

Banned
Yeah, PS4 downloads have been considerably slower than other services (e.g. steam, origin, gog)

I don't have any other consoles (beyond the Wii U but I buy 100% of games on disc for that one) to compare against.
 
Caayn

Caayn

Member
jellies_two said:
there are a few thinga to say on this

pc download speeds measured by speedtest.net are done with parallel downloads not a single download. This gives an unrealistic result unless you are going to use torrents or steam. Also speedtest steers you to in isp network or hyper local servers, which also help. But mainly, they flood download and upload channels with simultaneous requests.

the ps4 speed you might measure or observe is a single tcp stream and to a server at psn or otherwise that is probably more remote than whatever you test the pc against. The server might also be busy preloading bloodborne or whatever.

So apples to bananas make sure you compare the same thing: speed of a single download, to a server the same latency away! not psn game download speed to pc speedtest.net speed!

if you want to test a single download, pc vs ps4, try http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/simple
or there is also a multi stream download speedtest at
http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest
which will fill your comcast connectiom
however I dont know if the latter one works on the ps4 browser - which lacks more than a few features vs even phone browsers let alone desktop.

Lastly, the ps4 tcp stack may not be configured to be as aggressive as it might be. Normally, osx and linux scales a single tcp stream up a lot more than windows does but I dont know if ps4 bsd has been configured for fast downloads over 50ms+ connections.
Click to expand...
A few of us are aware of that. But thanks for assuming that none of us know. As posted by me and a couple of other posters we've got no problem maxing out our connection on a PC with Steam, Origin, Uplay game downloads for example where as PS4 troubles reaching half of those speeds on the same connection.

That is an user environment not a test environment like speedtest. You have a nice way with words it's just so sad that it falls apart so easily.
 
B

BrettHeazy

Member
and I'll just sit here waiting whilst my 3mbps does it's thing...

giphy.gif
 
K

Kama_1082

Banned
tempest3 said:
I have a wired homeplug set up for my PS4 and it test around 30-40 Mbps which isn't bad but my downloads never seem to be anything close to that. Pausing and restarting the download sometimes works though. Even when I re-test download speeds it can go <10 Mbps. Not sure what is up with the servers. Hate that I can't take advantage of my top speeds though
Click to expand...
Exactly this. My PS4 download speeds vary from 600 k/s to maybe 10 mbps. I pay for 100 and alway max out on steam.
 
G

Gbraga

Member
GReeeeN said:
I think this whole download speed on PSN is overblown...

how much sooner do you want your content? 40-50Mbps is 5MB/ per second... which is still pretty damn fast...

seeing as though most big games these days allow pre-loading, 30-40gb games take 1h at max..

I agree, it doesn't max out our internet connections, I'm on 100Mpbs, but 50Mbps is more than enough for me on ps4...
Click to expand...

The problem is that it's not consistent. If I could count on 5MB/s any day, it would be much less of an issue, but I can't, some times I'll just get 1MB/s because reasons, and for some people in this thread it's way worse than that.

Every now and then I'll get around 10MB/s, but most of the times it's 2MB/s, and if I start two downloads at the same time, I'll get 2MB/s for each, so there may be some weird cap going on.
 
J

jellies_two

Member
Caayn said:
A few of us are aware of that. But thanks for assuming that none of us know. As posted by me and a couple of other posters we've got no problem maxing out our connection on a PC with Steam, Origin, Uplay game downloads for example where as PS4 troubles reaching half of those speeds on the same connection.

That is an user environment not a test environment like speedtest. You have a nice way with words it's just so sad that it falls apart so easily.
Click to expand...

do you sctually know how ateam fills your connection? do you know what edge network they use, and can compare it to psns?

and do you know how the tcp stack is setup on pc vs ps4?

because if you do, you can probably answer your own questions on psn ps4 download speed va steam, other than just observing that steam fills a comcast connection, and psn does not.

I know for a fact that psn download is just single stream, everything else comes down to the location of the steam edge network, and how they do their downloading. I remember steam used to do a torrent-like system for downloads but whether they still do or not is immaterial (they dont: they use a mega cdn that would not be matched by psn or xbox live). When you want to go faster than 25mbit especially 100mbit+ you need to be bang on top of the server delivering the data (steam), or you need to go parallel.
 
S

Shahed

Member
Download speeds on PSN are pot luck. My cousin and I max our connections out when downloading. But my sister and a different cousin find their speeds are throttled. Sometimes it's so bad my sister will bring her consoles to my houee to download a large file.
 
B

Bluenoser

Member
My guess is the PS4 has a piece of shit wifi card in it. Sitting the same distance from my wifi access point, I get 70+Mbps on my laptop, and can only get 22Mbps on my PS4. It's just the technology in the console hardware I'm afraid. Consider yourself lucky you get 40-50Mb...

Edit: Or this may have nothing to do with it, and it may be related to the Sony servers themselves... I'm not that techie, so I'm really not sure, but it was like this for PS3 as well.
 
D

Dr. Black Jack

Member
jellies_two said:
its all sony but how much this matters depends on what city you are in.

and you dont get 95 down on your pc unless you download from a low latency (local) server.
Click to expand...

I get 80-95 down/24 up from almost any server I select on speedtest, even half the country away. I'm aware of how servers work, thanks.

eyeroll.gif
 
P

pahamrick

Member
I've been borrowing my friends PS4 for a few months now, and it's definitely the system as opposed to the PSN servers. I've been using a program to download stuff to my pc. When downloading via PC it tends to max my download no problem.

Not home to get exact name but it's PSN Download helper or something.
 
J

jellies_two

Member
Dr. Black Jack said:
I get 80-95 down/24 up from almost any server I select on speedtest, even half the country away. I'm aware of how servers work, thanks.

eyeroll.gif
Click to expand...

as i pointed out before speedtest does parallel downloads
so you can pick any speedtest server and get 85 because you are doing 16 downloads simultaneously. If you dont believe me look at the packet capture

psn does one download. steam does too (probably) but uses very local servers with an amazing cdn. It you do one download on your pc (from a non local server) you dont get 85.

should i insert the annoying gif in my reply too?
 
Derpcrawler

Derpcrawler

Member
jellies_two said:
its all sony but how much this matters depends on what city you are in.

and you dont get 95 down on your pc unless you download from a low latency (local) server.
Click to expand...

I get 200Mbps+ to any continent other than my own (I get 900mbps+ in Asia). Yet PSN is so special, best I can hope for is 20-30Mbps. No other gaming service I use is that shitty. All of them are at least 100Mbps. In fact, Battle.net and Origin both push 500Mbps constantly at minimum.

With local Steam servers I get exactly 100.9Mbps with 0% deviation, since I believe my local servers are throttling speed on their side. If I chose Los Angeles (which is 10000km away from me), I get constant 200-300Mbps.
 
J

jellies_two

Member
Derpcrawler said:
I get 200Mbps+ to any continent other than my own (I get 900mbps+ in Asia). Yet PSN is so special, best I can hope for is 20-30Mbps. No other gaming service I use is that shitty. All of them are at least 100Mbps. In fact, Battle.net and Origin both push 500Mbps constantly at minimum.
Click to expand...

using what? speedtest? read my reply above.
ps: i am not saying psn cant use a better cdn it clearly can.
but realise how you are comparing, and what the latency is to the server
do you know what psn server you are connected to? what origin server?
higher latency = lower speed , for single downloads.
(forget speedtest.net)
 
B

benicillin

Banned
I have a full gig connection that tests ~950/950 on average on my PC but my PS4 only downloads at about 3-10meg with brief spikes to 30 or 40. Really disappointing, pretty sure it's their lack of infrastructure.
 
Caayn

Caayn

Member
jellies_two said:
do you sctually know how ateam fills your connection? do you know what edge network they use, and can compare it to psns?

and do you know how the tcp stack is setup on pc vs ps4?

because if you do, you can probably answer your own questions on psn ps4 download speed va steam, other than just observing that steam fills a comcast connection, and psn does not.

I know for a fact that psn download is just single stream, everything else comes down to the location of the steam edge network, and how they do their downloading. I remember steam used to do a torrent-like system for downloads but whether they still do or not is immaterial (they dont: they use a mega cdn that would not be matched by psn or xbox live). When you want to go faster than 25mbit especially 100mbit+ you need to be bang on top of the server delivering the data (steam), or you need to go parallel.
Click to expand...
Let me guess you took one Cisco course and now think you understand how the networks work and the part they play in the B2C relationships.

The consumer doesn't care what company X does behind the scenes in order to deliver what (s)he expects. The fact remains that free services(Steam, Origin, Uplay, and dozen others) offer better experiences(speeds) than a service does that has a subscription option.

I as a consumer don't care what Sony does, how their edge network looks, what CDN they use, how their distribution layer looks, all I care about is a good experience.

Just for your info. I live in Europe, we don't have Comcast here, no shitty US network infrastructure to deal with, I've got a 500/500 fiber connection to my modem, I get better download speeds from across the globe than Sony offers with their PSN servers.

Sony is at fault, not the consumer, not the consumer's ISP, not the consumer's network.
 
D

Dr. Black Jack

Member
jellies_two said:
as i pointed out before speedtest does parallel downloads
so you can pick any speedtest server and get 85 because you are doing 16 downloads simultaneously. If you dont believe me look at the packet capture

psn does one download. steam does too (probably) but uses very local servers with an amazing cdn. It you do one download on your pc (from a non local server) you dont get 85.

should i insert the annoying gif in my reply too?
Click to expand...

No, you're doing a perfect job at being annoying as is.
 
J

jellies_two

Member
Caayn said:
Let me guess you took one cisco course and now think you understand how the networks work and the part they play in the B2C relationship.

The consumer doesn't care what company X does behind the scenes in order to deliver what (s)he expects. The fact remains that free services offer better experiences(speeds) than a server does that has a subscription option.

I as a consumer don't care what Sony does, how their edge network looks, what CDN they use, how their distribution layer looks, all I care about is a good experience.

Just for your info. I live in Europe, we don't have Comcast here, no shitty US network infrastructure to deal with, I've got a 500/500 fiber connection to my modem, I get better download speeds from across the globe than Sony offers with their PSN servers.

Sony is at fault, not the consumer, not the consumer's ISP, not the consumer's network.
Click to expand...

so at least I have graduated to a cisco course now. If i keep replying go you maybe you will credit me with an actual job in this space. but why be so unpleasant.

I am not standing here defending psn, just pointing out WHY psn downloads may not go
a) as fast as speedtest.net
b) as fast as origin or steam
and if we ignore (a) becauae it is not an equal comparison then it is all down to where they have located their servers or rather, where they have not.

If it has got worse since an update it could be they added bugs to geo location or are adjusting their content network, or just coincidence.

either way, if people want psn downloads to go as fast as they do on steam, in every country, then psn need as many remote servers as steam has, includng the frequent peering agreements steam has with isps.
Thats all that this is about.

(Also its hard to be sympathetic with someone whining that they dont get 200mbit or even 50mbit out of psn: that is what preload is for).
 
njean777

njean777

Member
When I download stuff on psn I always hardwire my ps4. It goes faster then when I just use wifi. It doesn't max out my 100mbs connection either way, but it goes to about 3-4mbs when I hardwire instead of 2-3 when I use the ps4 wifi.
 
R

realcZk

Member
The Playstation Notwork is pretty slow in general for me, if I can download at half my max rate it's a good day. I would definitely recommend you use an ethernet cable and avoid the built-in wifi at all costs, it's pretty terrible for both speed and latency.
 
N

Noobcraft

Member
Yeah it's a PSN thing. Highest I've hit on XBL is 144mbps (while downloading Ori and the Blind Forest) while the PSN maxes around 40mbps for me.
 
G

Gacha-pin

Member
My connection is between 12~14Mb/s on the ps4 connection test but when I actually download something from the store or patches, the speed is around 3MB/s. That connection test is not that accurate I guess?
 
10101

10101

Gold Member
Two Words said:
50 Mbps is slow as shit?
Click to expand...

Pre 2.0 I used to get around 50Mbps consistently, which is fine even though its a 3rd of my available bandwidth. It is fast enough.

These days though my downloads are just ridiculously slow. Last night I was trying to grab the latest GTA update and it was running at ~200Kbps. I gave up lol.

I understand that servers get hammered and whatnot, but it just feels like they haven't bothered adding extra capacity and the network is obviously getting used more as they are selling PS4's hand over fist. It could well be a bug with FW 2.x though, in which case I hope they fix it soon :)
 
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