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Steam vs. Reznet, round one
Kate of Lokys
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I'm currently living in grad residence - an actual apartment building owned and rented out by the school - at the University of Western Ontario, doing a one-year MA in English. My boyfriend and I just moved in on September 1, and we're still in the process of getting stuff organized. One of the things we need to wait for is proper internet access: we can't get DSL until we get a phone line activated, I couldn't order phone activation until I got my new credit card, et cetera. With any luck, the phone should be up and running early next week, and DSL will be live by the end of next week.
For now, though, we're stuck with good ol' UWO Reznet. It is very slow, and very limited - 1GB download per day, and the first offense for going over the cap is suspension of service for five days, no appeal. But we can live with it: my boyfriend has sorrowfully accepted the fact that watching a clip on Youtube now means clicking the link, hitting pause, and doing something else for ten minutes while it buffers. We downloaded a bandwidth monitor, and I don't think we've been above 500MB on any given day yet.
The one major problem, however, is Steam. Simply put, it is pretty well non-functional. I traditionally enjoy getting a couple of rounds of TF2 in before bed (nothing helps me sleep like setting a few dozen people on fire), but when I sit down at the computer and start up Steam, it just sits at "Steam - Updating - 4% complete" for an hour at a time. On the rare occasions when I can actually get into the game, it runs just fine; I get pings in the 30-60 range on my regular servers, which is perfectly playable. But it is tremendously frustrating to spend an entire evening watching an unmoving progress bar.
So... is there anything I can do to make Steam work better? It only stalls like this when there's an update, I think, but there seem to have been updates every day lately. Is there any way to tell Steam "hey, can I just kind of skip that for now and play some TF2 already?" Are there ports I could forward to help the process of updating? Or am I doomed to just live without until I get DSL installed in a couple of weeks?
(Obligatory disclaimers:
- gaming is not in any way prohibited by the terms of Reznet, or anything - in fact, the user manual specifically mentions shaping bandwidth to allow students to play their World of Warcraft.
- I don't need the "OMG you should be studying!!1!" lecture, thank you kindly. I'm not a newchum frosh cutting class to play EverQuest anymore: I'm a grad student. I'm taking a full courseload, I'm teaching two tutorial sessions per week as a TA, I'm in a happy loving live-in relationship... I have my priorities straight. I just really want to be able to play an hour of TF2 every couple of nights.)
For now, though, we're stuck with good ol' UWO Reznet. It is very slow, and very limited - 1GB download per day, and the first offense for going over the cap is suspension of service for five days, no appeal. But we can live with it: my boyfriend has sorrowfully accepted the fact that watching a clip on Youtube now means clicking the link, hitting pause, and doing something else for ten minutes while it buffers. We downloaded a bandwidth monitor, and I don't think we've been above 500MB on any given day yet.
The one major problem, however, is Steam. Simply put, it is pretty well non-functional. I traditionally enjoy getting a couple of rounds of TF2 in before bed (nothing helps me sleep like setting a few dozen people on fire), but when I sit down at the computer and start up Steam, it just sits at "Steam - Updating - 4% complete" for an hour at a time. On the rare occasions when I can actually get into the game, it runs just fine; I get pings in the 30-60 range on my regular servers, which is perfectly playable. But it is tremendously frustrating to spend an entire evening watching an unmoving progress bar.
So... is there anything I can do to make Steam work better? It only stalls like this when there's an update, I think, but there seem to have been updates every day lately. Is there any way to tell Steam "hey, can I just kind of skip that for now and play some TF2 already?" Are there ports I could forward to help the process of updating? Or am I doomed to just live without until I get DSL installed in a couple of weeks?
(Obligatory disclaimers:
- gaming is not in any way prohibited by the terms of Reznet, or anything - in fact, the user manual specifically mentions shaping bandwidth to allow students to play their World of Warcraft.
- I don't need the "OMG you should be studying!!1!" lecture, thank you kindly. I'm not a newchum frosh cutting class to play EverQuest anymore: I'm a grad student. I'm taking a full courseload, I'm teaching two tutorial sessions per week as a TA, I'm in a happy loving live-in relationship... I have my priorities straight. I just really want to be able to play an hour of TF2 every couple of nights.)
Kate of Lokys on
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Posts
The steam website should tell you what ports you need open for it to work properly.
but they're listening to every word I say