Your internet download and SD card write speed are not the only limiting factors on how quickly games download and install The downloads are also compressed so your CPU can also be the bottleneck
Never knew the difference between read and write; now I'll be sure to pay more attention to that next time I buy a SD card. Really wish I knew this earlier before I bought a 512 GB SD Evo.
Thank you for the video. This was the exact problem i have... What i ended up doing was the download limit. I had to set my download limit to 4.4 MB/s. Any higher will make the problem come back again... I have a Samsung Evo Plus 256GB...
I use a SanDisk Ultra 1TB SD Card and limiting the download speed to 51mbps (or 51,000kbps) gives me speeds in the high 40s to 50s (mbps) with occasional dips down to the low 20s. Not bad at all. Thanks for the help and I hope this helps others as well.
This goes to show you how behind USA is when it comes to download speed. Most average home owners get 100 mb/sec. I cap at 12 Megabytes per second download. And I pay over $150 per month for it. Since my download is low enough, I did not encounter this issue on my Scandisk Flash.
I think this star/stop downloading behavior is normal to happen on games that have a lot off files like 10 thousands or more. Fortunately theren't a lot of this type of games.
Important: the Linux kernel used by Steam OS doesn’t support A2 cards, so currently you could see worse performance with A2 cards. They aren’t broken, just not working yet. This will be fixed with a Kernel update
I'm assuming its just not used to its potential as there would be a lot of reports of issues otherwise, I was using an A1 Card before and it had the issues I showed here (the one I bricked)
@@SteamDeckGaming yeah. A1 cards can currently be even faster than A2 cards, because in A1 cards the microcontroller is inside the card, while in A2 cards the OS has a lot more options (oversimplified), so SteamOS treats A2 cards as A1 cards which massively hinders their potential. Every Linux Kernel version bigger than or equal to 5.18 will probably bring huge speed improvements for A2 cards
Seriously? Damnit, I specifically hunted for name brand a2 cards thanks to the reviews of a number of CZcams videos and reddit posts to ensure you're not paying for something you can't even utilize... Which... Is exactly what happened. Lexar a2 1tb card. Read speed 150, write "n/a" .. :(
I had a San disk and San disk extreme they both did this never finishing a download even after a whole day sitting idle then it would just stop and say files corrupted. Got a samsung pro 512gb and worked totally fine, the issue is definitely with the card brand from my testing.
Thanks for the disable Wifi Power Management! I don't use wifi often, have my PC and consoles hooked up by Ethernet, but I do use my steam deck on wifi part of the time, so this was helpful cheers!
Noted I don't have a steam deck however I've been researching this thing for about a week and a half maybe longer until I get the money to order one I've been wanting to get back into PC gaming after so many years I feel like the steam deck would be a nice cheaper alternative to a full sized PC or a mini PC I was going to order a good mini gaming PC but certain events have prevented me from doing so for the time being, I couldn't run a full sized gaming PC in my house the power supplies on those things would trip my breakers
Many months ago , I was having this issue & I read somewhere if you go into desktop mode and clear the download cache that it would fix the issue. This entails being logged out of steam, Having to restart Steam Deck and logging back into Steam. I have used this method once or twice a month , especially after downloading a lot of smaller games. Why it works , I have no clue. Even if it works or some other part of the process is fixing the issue ‘shrug’ , I just know it’s been working for me 🥳🥳🥳 The caveat to this is , I’ve not had to do it for the past 8 weeks , as I’ve been solely playing Mass Effect Legendary followed by ME : Andromeda , which I downloaded a couple months ago , so not downloaded anything past 8 weeks 😛😛😛
I have the Samsung Evo myself and have had download and transfer issues since I got my deck...I tried the wifi fix and for whatever reason it screwed up my deck...made the entire thing freeze up when I would try and load games and the game I was downloading at the time when it finished gave me an error message and said that it was missing installation files? Upshot? I went from around 6mpbs for avg downloads up to between 12-18mbps but wasn't worth the freezing and loading issues I was getting. I have since reverted to having the wifi setting back to default and while my decks still downloading slowly it hasn't frozen/failed to load anything since...
I have a Samsung Select 512gb thankfully. Is it still common wisdom to turn off WiFi Power Management? I notice even ~3 metres from my BT HomeHub with only a plaster wall between us my Steamdeck will show 1 bar of signal.
I have the TEAMGROUP A2 Pro Plus Card 1TB Micro SDXC UHS-I U3 A2 V30, and even wired its been giving me problems for months now. I get the bottom graph all the time, even after using the tips in this video
I've had like every issue imaginable with my steam decks internet and downloads. I changed the partion to the correct format on my window PC and was able to resolve all of it it's pretty the same as the kde method but you do it on a windows pc with some software that I don't remember the name of
Samsung Evo, had to format my card multiple times to get max speed. Also did via the KDE Recently I noticed slower speeds again but all I did to fix was disconnect wifi and turn it back on. I also recommend doing transfers from ssd micro sd in desktop mode. As it allows for multiple transfers and you can still use the deck for browsing etc…
I switch off the wi-fi management and restart and the Deck hangs up on the logo screen for a long while before I force shut it off and doesn't look like it makes a difference. Do I just need to let it sit on the logo screen til it does something or is it being buggy?
So I changed the dns or whatever to 8.8.8.8 and now my Xbox downloads at a consistent 80mbps (fast compared to before) but the deck still only downloads at a consistent 11ish mbps…ordered recommended sd card as mine doesn’t have a written..write speed 🤞thank ya
I have an issue with my 1TB SanDisk SD card where everytime I use it (I have another SD card in which I swap it with) it always redownloads EVERY games shader cache even though I've already downloaded it, is that supposed to happen?
Ok so following up from the other day. It looks like SteamOS 3.4.1 fixed the issue I was having with my sandisk microSD card. My downloads are now downloading without any drop outs or stopping at around 40-50MB/s (which is as fast as my internet allows). I'll report back if anything changes but I'm quite happy about this. I wonder what the change was.
Damnit, I have a lexar 1 gig a2 card. The read is listed as 150 but the write... "n/a" apparently n/a means nonsense/ass cause this thing is so slow I thought something was wrong with my Steam Deck. Eventually there actually seems to be something wrong, the sd card gets very hot after a few minutes. I tossed the box too :( damnit.
I have windows on my SD and ive still the same problem where it stops downloading. This only happens with steam. With EG or GOG i don't have this problem.
Yo dude, I need help if possible 😅 I got 1TB micro sd card a while back and placed it into the steam deck and formatted it, the works Unfortunately, not long after it no longer recognized the micro sd so I formatted it once more and yet again same deal soon after Problem aside from the obvious silliness of having to format each time, I now have lots of games in the micro sd and it was a pain to collect them so moving them to a laptop/pc to transfer each time is madness as it would take hours each time I wanna use them For some odd reason my steam deck in desktop mode can recognize it without having to format, I only need to mount it each time How might this be solved?
where did you buy it from? check the reviews that you don't have a fake card and also, if it's just game mode not detecting it, then try the auto mount script
@@SteamDeckGaming Appreciate the answer, man. Oh and it was from amazon prime where I ordered it from For sure the card is legit, it holds everything well after all these months so doubt it's fake as nothing has corrupted
My SD Card always slides out when I insert it inside the Steam Deck, If I continue doing this I might break the steam deck and not get a replacement, please I need help.
HEH, Im out a 400gb sd card now but I am not blaming no one but myself no worries haha. I wanted an a2 card anyway. My sandisk has a iffy track record so I couldnt care less
Hmmm so it could be a Sandisk issue? Looks like I'll have to grab some Samsung cards and see if its any better. Would the Samsung PRO be better than Select?
@@SteamDeckGaming I'm running it on internal SD from the SteamDeck. My Micro SD is only for the games. Download speeds were great before I put Windows 11 on it
If it's the SD card then I'm glad I've chosen a SD card I can trust like Lexar. I have the 1TB Lexar SD card and I have no problems with it at all. Bit pricey but worth the money.
@@twosquirrels6997 I bought mine off Amazon when it was on sale which mine $89.00 I believe I bought mine around black Friday that's why it was so cheap yet expensive nearly $90.
Your internet download and SD card write speed are not the only limiting factors on how quickly games download and install
The downloads are also compressed so your CPU can also be the bottleneck
It can, but shouldn't be on the deck, it can process much faster than it can download
@@SteamDeckGaming Are you sure? it's 4 Zen 2 cores at 15w running between 2.4 and 3.5 GHz
Wow fixed my issue with downloading GOW idk why it was reserving space until I set the limit thank you so much
I have been trying fix this issue forever thank you kindly
Never knew the difference between read and write; now I'll be sure to pay more attention to that next time I buy a SD card. Really wish I knew this earlier before I bought a 512 GB SD Evo.
I'm using Samsung PRO Plus 512GB and it's been rock solid. Can't notice any difference compared to the internal SSD (the 256GB x4 lanes model).
yeah i got the 256 one it was fantastic, then i did something now its doing the same as the top graph in the video
I'm using the exact same SD card and I'm downloading with 36 kbps right now with a 1000 mbits connection.
@@facopse don't know how to help you mate but safe to say thats very weird.
THANKS, pretty sure I have a SanDisk extreme 512gb been having issues will try this when I get home!
Mine is having this probleme
Thank you for the video. This was the exact problem i have... What i ended up doing was the download limit. I had to set my download limit to 4.4 MB/s. Any higher will make the problem come back again...
I have a Samsung Evo Plus 256GB...
I use a SanDisk Ultra 1TB SD Card and limiting the download speed to 51mbps (or 51,000kbps) gives me speeds in the high 40s to 50s (mbps) with occasional dips down to the low 20s. Not bad at all. Thanks for the help and I hope this helps others as well.
Thank you, my brother thank you. I thought I had to go get another one. I see the light now I see the light and beautiful.😭🙏🏾
This goes to show you how behind USA is when it comes to download speed. Most average home owners get 100 mb/sec. I cap at 12 Megabytes per second download. And I pay over $150 per month for it. Since my download is low enough, I did not encounter this issue on my Scandisk Flash.
Nothing in the video helped me, but setting the IO scheduler to BFQ fixed the UI freezes that are caused by high SD card usage
Excellent advice thank you
I think this star/stop downloading behavior is normal to happen on games that have a lot off files like 10 thousands or more. Fortunately theren't a lot of this type of games.
Important: the Linux kernel used by Steam OS doesn’t support A2 cards, so currently you could see worse performance with A2 cards. They aren’t broken, just not working yet. This will be fixed with a Kernel update
I'm assuming its just not used to its potential as there would be a lot of reports of issues otherwise, I was using an A1 Card before and it had the issues I showed here (the one I bricked)
Good think I have only bought the A1 versions of the 1tb SanDisk older generation of it.
@@SteamDeckGaming yeah. A1 cards can currently be even faster than A2 cards, because in A1 cards the microcontroller is inside the card, while in A2 cards the OS has a lot more options (oversimplified), so SteamOS treats A2 cards as A1 cards which massively hinders their potential. Every Linux Kernel version bigger than or equal to 5.18 will probably bring huge speed improvements for A2 cards
Seriously? Damnit, I specifically hunted for name brand a2 cards thanks to the reviews of a number of CZcams videos and reddit posts to ensure you're not paying for something you can't even utilize... Which... Is exactly what happened. Lexar a2 1tb card. Read speed 150, write "n/a" .. :(
@@Subfightr i just got an a2 card, dammit
I had a San disk and San disk extreme they both did this never finishing a download even after a whole day sitting idle then it would just stop and say files corrupted. Got a samsung pro 512gb and worked totally fine, the issue is definitely with the card brand from my testing.
Thanks for the disable Wifi Power Management! I don't use wifi often, have my PC and consoles hooked up by Ethernet, but I do use my steam deck on wifi part of the time, so this was helpful cheers!
Glad I could help!
I’ve had this exact issue with the Samsung evo 512, I was on a wired connection and downloading about 30gb of games.
Me too. Have you been able to fix it? I've gotten my downloads to a solid 30MBs. But on the SSD I'm getting solid 75MBs
Noted I don't have a steam deck however I've been researching this thing for about a week and a half maybe longer until I get the money to order one I've been wanting to get back into PC gaming after so many years I feel like the steam deck would be a nice cheaper alternative to a full sized PC or a mini PC I was going to order a good mini gaming PC but certain events have prevented me from doing so for the time being, I couldn't run a full sized gaming PC in my house the power supplies on those things would trip my breakers
Many months ago , I was having this issue & I read somewhere if you go into desktop mode and clear the download cache that it would fix the issue. This entails being logged out of steam, Having to restart Steam Deck and logging back into Steam.
I have used this method once or twice a month , especially after downloading a lot of smaller games. Why it works , I have no clue. Even if it works or some other part of the process is fixing the issue ‘shrug’ , I just know it’s been working for me 🥳🥳🥳
The caveat to this is , I’ve not had to do it for the past 8 weeks , as I’ve been solely playing Mass Effect Legendary followed by ME : Andromeda , which I downloaded a couple months ago , so not downloaded anything past 8 weeks 😛😛😛
It doesn't work for me
Thank you I just reformatted back to steam os.
Nice, it is working with the bandwidth, now it's downloading the game 😊 ty
No problem 👍
Good thing when I was deciding on which sd card to get between the 1tb SanDisk and Samsung good thing got the 512gb seems good!
I have the Samsung Evo myself and have had download and transfer issues since I got my deck...I tried the wifi fix and for whatever reason it screwed up my deck...made the entire thing freeze up when I would try and load games and the game I was downloading at the time when it finished gave me an error message and said that it was missing installation files? Upshot? I went from around 6mpbs for avg downloads up to between 12-18mbps but wasn't worth the freezing and loading issues I was getting. I have since reverted to having the wifi setting back to default and while my decks still downloading slowly it hasn't frozen/failed to load anything since...
holy crap! i did the wifi power management and now im hitting 230 mbps!
I have a Samsung Select 512gb thankfully.
Is it still common wisdom to turn off WiFi Power Management? I notice even ~3 metres from my BT HomeHub with only a plaster wall between us my Steamdeck will show 1 bar of signal.
not common hence I covered it in this one
I have the TEAMGROUP A2 Pro Plus Card 1TB Micro SDXC UHS-I U3 A2 V30, and even wired its been giving me problems for months now. I get the bottom graph all the time, even after using the tips in this video
Dev mode fixed my issue!
Same problems here with 1TB SanDisk card. And to think it's one of the more expensive cards on the market...
I just got this sd and my steam deck is downloading so slow!!
I've had like every issue imaginable with my steam decks internet and downloads. I changed the partion to the correct format on my window PC and was able to resolve all of it it's pretty the same as the kde method but you do it on a windows pc with some software that I don't remember the name of
Samsung Evo, had to format my card multiple times to get max speed. Also did via the KDE
Recently I noticed slower speeds again but all I did to fix was disconnect wifi and turn it back on.
I also recommend doing transfers from ssd micro sd in desktop mode. As it allows for multiple transfers and you can still use the deck for browsing etc…
I noticed it started to do that a few days ago, for me on windows, 11
I did this and now all my games said "install" and I can't install them again but they appears in my sd card
I switch off the wi-fi management and restart and the Deck hangs up on the logo screen for a long while before I force shut it off and doesn't look like it makes a difference. Do I just need to let it sit on the logo screen til it does something or is it being buggy?
After inserting the SD card, I restarted the steam deck and it worked
I restarted it and it worked but the game would not open completely. It got stuck in a loading screen.
@@atmphil1 all game run perfectly, idk
@@atmphil1 all game run perfectly, idk
So I changed the dns or whatever to 8.8.8.8 and now my Xbox downloads at a consistent 80mbps (fast compared to before) but the deck still only downloads at a consistent 11ish mbps…ordered recommended sd card as mine doesn’t have a written..write speed 🤞thank ya
I have an issue with my 1TB SanDisk SD card where everytime I use it (I have another SD card in which I swap it with) it always redownloads EVERY games shader cache even though I've already downloaded it, is that supposed to happen?
It was the WiFi power limit what the hell.
Ok so following up from the other day. It looks like SteamOS 3.4.1 fixed the issue I was having with my sandisk microSD card. My downloads are now downloading without any drop outs or stopping at around 40-50MB/s (which is as fast as my internet allows). I'll report back if anything changes but I'm quite happy about this. I wonder what the change was.
Was this an a1 or a2 card?
@@SteamDeckGaming A2 Sandisk extreme Plus 512gb
Thank you, very helpful!!
Cool I have that exact Samsung. 2 of them. 500 gig. I only have win 11 installed on my new 500gig internal SSD and this is still happening
Have you tried limiting the download speed to a high number in steam on windows?
@@SteamDeckGaming yep
Damnit, I have a lexar 1 gig a2 card. The read is listed as 150 but the write... "n/a" apparently n/a means nonsense/ass cause this thing is so slow I thought something was wrong with my Steam Deck. Eventually there actually seems to be something wrong, the sd card gets very hot after a few minutes. I tossed the box too :( damnit.
I have windows on my SD and ive still the same problem where it stops downloading. This only happens with steam. With EG or GOG i don't have this problem.
Have you tired limiting the download speed in Steam on windows?
I have a EVO and I’m still having problems
I can get my steam deck to use my SD card for certain downloads. I already have it formated
It's annoying that my games aren't working on my 1tb that worked on my nintendo switch oled they are on an infinite load screen how do I fix that
Sometimes games do that regardless. Try restarting the deck and you should be good.
Yo dude, I need help if possible 😅
I got 1TB micro sd card a while back and placed it into the steam deck and formatted it, the works
Unfortunately, not long after it no longer recognized the micro sd so I formatted it once more and yet again same deal soon after
Problem aside from the obvious silliness of having to format each time, I now have lots of games in the micro sd and it was a pain to collect them so moving them to a laptop/pc to transfer each time is madness as it would take hours each time I wanna use them
For some odd reason my steam deck in desktop mode can recognize it without having to format, I only need to mount it each time
How might this be solved?
where did you buy it from? check the reviews that you don't have a fake card and also, if it's just game mode not detecting it, then try the auto mount script
@@SteamDeckGaming Appreciate the answer, man. Oh and it was from amazon prime where I ordered it from
For sure the card is legit, it holds everything well after all these months so doubt it's fake as nothing has corrupted
Same here, I got mine from Amazon, lexar A2, 1tb card. Exact same problems in my steam deck. Did you ever find a solution?
Limiting it to 30 helped
Yeah today I couldn't play any of my games until shatterline and days gone finished downloading. Wtf is up w that
My SD Card always slides out when I insert it inside the Steam Deck, If I continue doing this I might break the steam deck and not get a replacement, please I need help.
are you pushing it far enough in for it to click into place?
@@SteamDeckGaming I hold the SD card in there, it shows 20 of my games, when I release my finger, It slides out.
But I tried, nothing worked.
Cannot change the limit bandwidth it's stuck at zero
Increment it slowly
made my downloads go from 15mb to 50 in an instant thanks!
That's great to hear, happy to help
You on Mastodon?
Both Steam Decks?
Samsung evo been stuck on 20MB/s
I use an A2 EVO select and I can reach constant 50MB/s
Thats what we see too, great card. Check the download speed fixes and you might be able to get a bit higher too
HEH, Im out a 400gb sd card now but I am not blaming no one but myself no worries haha. I wanted an a2 card anyway. My sandisk has a iffy track record so I couldnt care less
oh no, what happened? did KDE brick your card too?
@@TinSucks let me know if you fix it. Otherwise time for a shiny new Samsung evo select hehe.
Steam needs to fix this shit
Hmmm so it could be a Sandisk issue? Looks like I'll have to grab some Samsung cards and see if its any better. Would the Samsung PRO be better than Select?
technically yes, but i've been fine with the Select
I have windows 11 on my deck. Anyone else have issues with slow downloading?
Are you running windows off the sd card as well?
Im running windows off my Internal 64gb n putting every download n games on my sandisk 256gb microSD n seeing slow speeds
@@NineXtreme same here
@@SteamDeckGaming I'm running it on internal SD from the SteamDeck. My Micro SD is only for the games. Download speeds were great before I put Windows 11 on it
Get to the fix already jesus
Lol I just bought this exact card
Makes me wonder if Valve should consider making their own brand of MicroSD cards that they can vet, like the Steam Deck Dock.
That would be cool, but they probably have enough to deal with lol, maybe JSAUX will add one to their product line lol
I'm using Samsung 512 gb Evo select on windows with the same issue. How do I fix this issue on windows ?
If it's the SD card then I'm glad I've chosen a SD card I can trust like Lexar. I have the 1TB Lexar SD card and I have no problems with it at all. Bit pricey but worth the money.
I have this exact card and can confirm if you limit bandwidth to 100000 it downloads pretty fast and consistent now
Where did you people buy the card off Amazon eBay
@@twosquirrels6997 I bought mine off of Amazon 220.00 Canadian dollars I believe
@@twosquirrels6997 I bought mine off Amazon when it was on sale which mine $89.00 I believe I bought mine around black Friday that's why it was so cheap yet expensive nearly $90.
@@twosquirrels6997 right now on Amazon it's $135.00 if you're in the US
Wow fixed my issue with downloading GOW idk why it was reserving space until I set the limit thank you so much