A while back, Valve pushed out an update for Steam that made it so game updates wouldn't always download the moment they were pushed live. Instead, they would automatically download on a "schedule" that presumably took into account how often you played the game and when the last time was that you played the game that was just updated. I believe they rolled this whole scheduled download update at some point in the early days of the Covid lockdown when everyone was stuck at home playing games and trying not to die.
Fast-forward a few years and Valve seems to be giving players back some degree of control on when their Steam library can download game updates. Sure, Covid is still around and more people than ever are using Steam, but Valve seems to be better equipped to handle your downloads whenever you want them.
A new Steam Client Beta is out that lets you determine if you want to download game updates on Steam's terms or on your terms. If you have a large library and don't mind that Steam staggers updates for games you aren't regularly playing, just leave it as it is. If you would rather get all of those updates immediately when they're available, you can now do so. You can now also have specific games download immediately while the rest of your library sticks to the staggered schedule. Hell, you can now even have Steam hold off on game updates until you click the Play button because you like to sit there and wait a while.
To test this out right now, you will have to opt-in to the current Steam Client Beta.
What's new?
We've added a new section to control the default behavior for when game updates are applied, under "Downloads" in the Steam Client settings. You can set the default to: let Steam decide when to update the game (based on factors like when you last played the game, bandwidth availability, etc.) or wait to update until the game is launched.
To set specific game overrides, go to Library > Game> Game Properties (the gear icon). The options remain the same, with cleaned up descriptions.
To see which games have specific overrides, head back to the Steam Client "Downloads" settings and click "Manage Exceptions".
Looking for even more control?
These new settings join a robust set of existing download options that can be found under "Downloads" in the Steam Client settings. Head there to limit your download speed, pause downloads while you play or stream a game, and more. If there is a setting you would like to see and can't find, please let us know!.
We've added a new section to control the default behavior for when game updates are applied, under "Downloads" in the Steam Client settings. You can set the default to: let Steam decide when to update the game (based on factors like when you last played the game, bandwidth availability, etc.) or wait to update until the game is launched.
To set specific game overrides, go to Library > Game> Game Properties (the gear icon). The options remain the same, with cleaned up descriptions.
To see which games have specific overrides, head back to the Steam Client "Downloads" settings and click "Manage Exceptions".
Looking for even more control?
These new settings join a robust set of existing download options that can be found under "Downloads" in the Steam Client settings. Head there to limit your download speed, pause downloads while you play or stream a game, and more. If there is a setting you would like to see and can't find, please let us know!.
And as for 2, yeah weird they only show KB but that's also pretty easy to use literally any converter on the web to find out what number you have to type in for the KBps limit you want. I long ago figured out that my roughly 500Mbps down is about 62.5MBps (you literally just divide by 8, you don't even need a converter). So I capped my download in Steam to 45000KBps or 45MBps to leave me spare bandwidth outside of Steam.