Can someone please explain to me why from Australia with a 25 mbps line game downloads in the last few months have gotten insanely slow? Like ridiculously slow? I am trying to download Banished and at 89mb it is apparently going to take around 40 minutes to download. Possibly longer. It keeps jumping from 30 to 45 to now it's just jumpe to 54 minutes. And it's already been downloading for 5 minutes.

I know the go-to response might be to "Use the GOG galaxy" but from what I can tell that kind of goes against the DRM-free system as the GOG galaxy is DRM in the same form as the Steam client is. I downloaded and installed it on the recommendation of a friend who claimed that it downloaded the installers and left them but it appears that this is not the case. It actually downloads, installs then deletes the installer.

GOG used to be pretty good before I moved houses. The irony though is that I went from a 5-8 mbps connection to a 25 mbps connection and now the download times are simply inappropriately slow. At a few points some weeks ago I couldn't actually download anything because games of more than a gig were going to take 12-24 hours and funny enough they never actually even got that far before they'd basically just stop mid transfer and not continue.

So what is the problem here? As it stands the games I've paid for are largely inaccessible to me in the fashion that I actually use GOG for.

Anyone else having similar problems? Furthermore GOG staff is there any work going to remedying this situation?

Edit: Well this is interesting. I just popped onto the website from my phone using 3g and managed to download the exact same game in a fraction of the time. Like literally downloaded it in about a minute. There must be some serious issue between Optus in Canberra and GOG's content delivery service.

Might wanna check for any malware on your PC. (malwarebytes/spybot seek and destroy is a pretty good software)
If you are using wifi connection try using Lan cable & disable wifi.

ISP issue? Is it the same provider that you had in your previous house? If not, I'd look to that as the issue, since there's no other logical reason for things to slow down so dramatically, and assuming you're using the same gear as before. Add into that the fact that your DL speed is faster using 3G on your phone and it looks more and more like something to do with your ISP.

Had the same problem and I just put it down to Gog's server.It's definitely slow but I just put up with it as there is no cure from our side.Being down hill it should basically be flatout but it seems to act like it's climbing a mountain.

Sorry I can't help you (downloading GOG installers has always been pretty speedy for me, both from home and workplace), but your experience reminds me of what I'm experiencing with Team Fortress 2 (a free-to-play online shooter on Steam).

It is not about the connection speed (that is fine), but when I play it at my home with my 10Mbps cable modem connection and e.g. search for CaptureTheFlag servers, I always find max 130 servers or so, usually 100, sometimes less. This is the same on two different PCs (laptops) where i play TF2.

If I use any other internet connection (with that same PC, as it is a laptop), e.g. a broadband connection somewhere else (even the free wifi on some hotel), or even my measly 3G mobile connection, it usually finds easily several hundred CTF servers.

What's up with that? Why do I seem to find only a fraction of the game servers, if I connect using my cable modem? It is behind a NAT, does that affect it somehow, and if so, am I supposed to forward some ports for Steam or TF2?

Otherwise everything is peachy though, I can play fine on those TF2 servers that i can actually find, downloads from all the services work fine etc. There are just some odd differences between different internet connections, even in the same area...

EDIT: Googling for it, there seem to be instructions which ports should be "open" (forwarded?) for Steam to function. The thing is, it is generally working and it isn't like I can't play multiplayer games.

Maybe I'll try to forward all those ports, or not...

Are those 25 mbps guaranteed or just 'up to"? As GR00T asked - did you switch ISPs? What's the state/quality of the infrastructure in the area you moved to? Do you get the full speed of your connection?

If you haven't already, I suggest you look into these things.

It is up to, I believe. I just did a test and it is running exceptionally slower than usual at the moment, I did a test last night whilst downloading Banished and got 23 mbps according to speedtest.net. Sadly I'm kind of forced to use wifi at the moment as the NBN (National Broadband Network) box is at the front of the house and I'm at the rear. Not much I can do about that without spending a few hundred bucks for a Ethernet over Power system or run a very long Cat5 cable.

As far as ISP's they are completely different ISPs. But I used to live in Regional Victoria where my max was around 8 mbps. Most of the time though it sat around 3-6. I could download things from GOG fairly quickly from there. Pushing a good 200-300kb/sec. From this ISP which for all intents and purposes should have better infrastructure, is closer, has a higher top speed yet somehow I'm lucky if I'm pushing 100kb/sec. Last night it was going at about 40 through most of the download. Downloading Windward that I just bought. 53.5mb and it is all up going to have taken about 25 minutes to download.

It might just be my ISP but either way that is ridiculous. I would be more than happy to use GOG Galaxy if it actually gave me and kept the installer as though I downloaded it off the site even if that was simply an option somewhere in the client. Perhaps one of the GOG guys can suggest it as a patch for the GOG Galaxy client. I thought it was an option if you manually set the download folder but all that seemed to do was define the "temporary" folder for the files, they still seem to get deleted after the install. I tried the GOG Downloader as well ages ago when I was having a different problem (download stalls) but that thing seemed to mangle the downloads more often than not. Ending up with a constant checksum issue where I'd have to restart it over and over.

Does your ISP do speed throttling during peak periods? Pretty sure Galaxy has an option to keep backup files. Someone that uses it (I don't) should be able to point out how to set that up.

I use the GOG DLer and have no issues with it even though they stopped official support for it months ago. Maybe give that another shot?

Regarding GOG Galaxy - there's an option to download the standalone installers, it's just not that straightforward. I'm not using it, so am not sure where exactly you can access them, but I think they're placed with the any other extras a game comes with.

I wouldn't rely on the results given by speedtest.net, and test the connection performing actual downloads from various locations. A good test is to download a Linux distro.

Wi-Fi has usually losses, and it could be possible that your ISP's Wi-Fi is not the best to begin with (the fact that you had much better results using your phone's 3G seems to support this). Also, do you know if it's secure, i.e. that no-one else is piggybacking on it?

If there's a relatively tidy way, I'd give that Cat5 cable a shot, it should net you better results than Wi-Fi.

A lot of ISP-s lie about the speed on Speedtest.net (Shaping protocols at certain addresses. Transparent proxying etc.)
Not a good page actually.
Speedtest.net shows your absolute best connection speed with a huge overhead buffer. That is considering no-one around you is using the internet and you are the only one online that day on your network node.


Also Gog servers are getting a hammering I suppose. A game is for free you know. The same threads every sale. Getting more f**king jaded.

Well I've decided instead of downloading everything at 20-30 kb/sec from my home line I might as well utilize one of my dedicated servers I have and download it off that then download it off the server. Not the ideal situation, but certainly going to be faster. Just started downloading SoaSE Rebellion on my server and it is going to take a whole 5 minutes. Then maybe a further 20-30 minutes to download it on my home line to my computer. The only downside is the distance of the server means I can usually only top out a max of about 200-300 kb/sec off my server. But that's still a lot better than 20-30.

For anyone who wonders. I'm in Canberra using Optus NBN. Not sure why it is so insanely slow but it is. It isn't a ping issue as the ping to the CDN is pretty stable and as expected. There are a few dropped packets here and there but nothing that would explain the massive speed reduction.

No it's not. We can keep up your argument saying that internet browser it's DRM the same as Galaxy and Steam clients. So it's the internet and even your energy provider. I never saw a game requiring energy connection in order to be played. LIES! There is no difference between GOG Galaxy and your browser that manages your downloads. Even if you go text-based, you still need an web browser. GOG Galaxy and Steam are tools. They help you getting your downloads easier, you can close them in the middle of the download if you feel like, they manage your temporary files, they provide some advantages. It's your choice, but, from my view, GOG Galaxy does all downloading and installing games thing easier, so i don't see why wouldn't you like it. You don't need it to start your game, as difference for some Steam games, so it's not an DRM.

Anyway, back to your problem, it can be either from your provider or from GOG servers. Try doing some internet speed tests as other suggested, when you encounter the slow downloads. If that test shows way too low results, then it's from your provider. Contact them and ask them what's wrong. Check your plan too. I don't know specifics in Australia, the practices regarding internet provider contracts. A while back, it was a common practice around here to have limited bandwidth at a specific speed. We were having 2-3 GB or whatever we had in our plan, when Internet would work at i don't know, 5 Mb/s until you reached those 2-3 GB downloaded. Once you reached your maximum, you would still have Internet but at very low speeds. Maybe you have that kind of plan, i don't know.

Okay well I don't know what if anything has changed on their end, but I just decided to try to download the latest version of Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion and I'm getting a steady 400-850 kb/sec. So whatever was done, yay.