Even if you’re dealing with Internet data limits, new steam deck, or if your internet is unbearably slow (or a combination of the three), you’ll find Steam’s latest features exciting. Recent Updates to Steam’s Beta Client Added support for transferring game installation files From one system to another over a local network. So, in theory, once you download a game to one of your machines, you don’t need to fetch it from Steam’s servers.
However, there are some caveats, at least for now.
- Both systems must run the Steam Beta client.
- Depending on your settings, you may also allow transfers to and from devices owned by friends or others on your network if both systems are not logged into the same account.
- The source system’s Steam account must be idle. This is because you are not running or downloading any games or game updates. Also, the game must be up to date on that system.
- Both systems must be online and on the same network.
- Only desktop mode PCs can send files. As such, sharing between Steam decks or between PCs in Big Picture mode is not yet done.
Additionally, Steam’s local network game transfer feature is incredibly easy to use. Here’s how.
Note that this tutorial shows a local transfer between two PCs running Steam. If you’re transferring your game to a Steam deck, the menus may differ slightly, but the process is essentially the same.
Get the Steam Beta Client
1. Launch Steam and click in the top left corner[Steam]select the menu option,[設定]Choose.
2.[設定]of the menu[アカウント]from the page,[ベータ参加]section of[変更]Click the button.
3.[ベータ参加]From the button menu under[Steam ベータ アップデート]and select[OK]Click.
Steam will then prompt you to reboot, and after a brief update/install process, you will be able to reboot Steam with the beta client enabled.
Steam’s documentation doesn’t seem to specify whether both the source and destination clients should be running Steam’s beta client. However, when I first tried a local file transfer with only the destination system running Steam Beta, the local transfer didn’t work (instead it pulled the game files from Steam’s servers). However, when I ran the beta client on both systems, the local file transfer process worked fine. As such, switching to Steam’s beta client only takes about a minute, so switching on both machines is recommended when transferring games locally between systems.
Install the game normally
After completing the above steps, try installing some games on your new system. In the background, Steam checks to see if there are other systems on the local network with the requested game files. If the title is on the network and up to date, it will start fetching files from that system instead of the cloud.
Of course, how much faster this is than downloading files from Steam’s servers depends on both your internet speed and your network speed. It depends a lot on how far you are from the access point.use my gateway T-Mobile 5G Home Internetin the same room as one of my machines and away from another room, Steam would elden ring I took the files from my old AMD AM4 machine and put them in Freshly assembled AM5/RTX 4090 system That’s about twice as fast as the game can be downloaded, or about 45 MBps.
If you connect both systems to Ethernet, the speed will definitely be much faster than over Wi-Fi. Even the humble Gigabit Ethernet found in modern mainstream systems (those that still have Ethernet ports) offers a theoretical bandwidth of 125MB. Also, many motherboards these days come with 2.5 Gb Ethernet ports. With a system with 2.5 Gb and a gaming router with a 2.5 Gb Ethernet port, you should be able to install the game at around 300 MB per second across your local network. This suddenly made me even more interested in the possibilities of 10 Gb Ethernet.
If you want to move your title in and out of Steam decks, I recommend looking into it. Valve’s Steen Deck Dock – Or a USB-C dock with Ethernet for extra wired bandwidth. As good as the Steam Deck, the Wi-Fi radio is limited to the old slow 802.11ac / Wi-Fi 5.The 45 MBps speed achieved in the image above is over a Wi-Fi 6 network with two Wi-Fi 6 A client PC one room away. Wi-Fi bandwidth may vary (and possibly change).
