Yes, Impulse is the fastest

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One of the harder to quantify advantages of Impulse IMO is that it generally has the fastest download speeds of anything similar out there. And I don’t mean one of those “faster in benchmark” but I mean faster by such a wide margin that it’ll basically go as fast as your ISP can go.

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57,185 views 28 replies
Reply #1 Top

i hear ya on that.  impulse flies through downloads.  i have a 5mb connection at home.  im phyically close to a major US internet routing hub which has proven to a number of advantages.

i can pull downloads from impulse about 4 times fast than stream.  it makes a huge difference in the perception of the services.

Reply #2 Top

It is very fast. A lot faster than Steam (for me anyway) and it's much faster than downloading something off Filefront, etc.

Reply #3 Top

I'm looking for the * and the fine print. Hmmm... Someone get legal in here!

Reply #4 Top

I agree, I've recently shifted to only buying games digital (my main computer is my laptop, sick of lugging different CD's around) and impulse is definately faster with some download times.

Reply #6 Top

Now if only my internet connection were anything like decent, I might benefit from this.

 

:fox:

Reply #7 Top

Quoting F35StrikeFighter, reply 5
Does that screenshot somehow prove Impulse is the fastest? I think I am missing something.....
End of F35StrikeFighter's quote

It may not be the fastest, but you gotta admit 8MB/s is pretty fast ;)

Reply #8 Top

Quoting Snowman, reply 7
Quoting F35StrikeFighter, reply 5Does that screenshot somehow prove Impulse is the fastest? I think I am missing something.....

It may not be the fastest, but you gotta admit MORE THAN 8MB/s is pretty fast 
End of Snowman's quote

fixed!

Reply #9 Top

I believe I have been able to download and install products in the same time it took to download with Stardock Central. Doesn't mean much to most but it means alot to me. :thumbsup:

Reply #10 Top

Bah, i've got so slow connection that everything downloads at the same speed, 100 kB/s that is :grin:

Reply #11 Top

I haven't really tried any of the others, but yes, Impulse (when I use it) tends to completely max out my download. That's all I can say on the subject.

And it's very rare that I get full download speed from any one source, anywhere else.

Reply #12 Top

I notice a huge difference between Impulse and Steam on my 20mbit fiber connection.  Impulse typically averages 1.5 megabytes / second transfer rate.  Steam on the same weekened would rarely go above 300-400kbps.

 

 

Reply #13 Top

not to speak poorly of my prefered service (Impulse)... but:

Look at the sheer # of connected users using the servers to download.  It's a little unfair, it's like comparing some startup social networking site to MySpace/facebook...

I'm glad it's fast.  But if there was a million more users downloading from it would it be equally as fast?

Reply #14 Top

For me impulse is 2 to 3 times faster then steam.

Reply #15 Top

not to speak poorly of my prefered service (Impulse)... but:

Look at the sheer # of connected users using the servers to download.  It's a little unfair, it's like comparing some startup social networking site to MySpace/facebook...

I'm glad it's fast.  But if there was a million more users downloading from it would it be equally as fast?

End of quote

Yes. It would still be this fast.

Reply #16 Top

Yeah, Steam has inadequate bandwidth.  Even with a pokey satellite connection, they still aren't pushing out enough bandwidth to keep up with it half the time.  Getting the HL2 updates was terrible.

Reply #17 Top

Whoah I thought 1mb per second was fast :omg:  

Reply #18 Top

how exactly do you keep up such good speeds.   Just good servers?   And does it work for other countries as well?

Reply #19 Top

Steam actually goes faster than me... but to be fair, that's because my ISP is one of the local Steam content servers. ;)

Am generally very impressed with the speeds Impulse gets though, even as an overseas user. Downloading anything particularly big is always going to take a while but at least I'm not cursing at it only using 10% of my speed. :)

Reply #20 Top

Look at the sheer # of connected users using the servers to download. It's a little unfair, it's like comparing some startup social networking site to MySpace/facebook...
End of quote

This, imo, reflects poorly on Valve.  Most of the time Steam is frustratingly slow.  If he would expand Steams server capabilities I'd be as happy with Steam as I am with Impulse.  Currently, I loathe Steam.  Yes, Steam has a larger user base, but this is meaningless if it doesn't have the server base to keep up with its number of users.

Reply #21 Top

I'm disappointed, you haven't even rated the games in your list Frogboy.
Tisk tisk.

Reply #22 Top

Yep, Steam got hit by the normal growing pains as users outpaced their network capacity, and instead of expanding to meet the requirements, they let you deal with it instead.

Reply #23 Top

Wow could someone help me with my download speeds for Impulse? I only get like 30kb/s x.D

Reply #24 Top

Quoting uberShade, reply 23
Wow could someone help me with my download speeds for Impulse? I only get like 30kb/s x.D
End of uberShade's quote
Dial-up is dead. ;P

 

:fox:

Reply #25 Top

Haha speedtest said I got 19 MB/s