Epic Games, Steam and Console Downloads: Speed Units Across Platforms

If you game across more than one platform you will have noticed that no two of them agree on how to report download speed. The same 500 Mbps connection can read as 58 MB/s in one place and 470 Mbps in another, ten minutes apart.

Here is what each platform shows, and why.

The short answer

Download progress is reported in MB/s almost everywhere, because it describes a file. Network speed tests are reported in Mbps, because they describe a connection. Divide the test result by 8 to compare the two.

Platform by platform

The pattern is completely consistent once you see it. Anything showing you a file arriving uses bytes. Anything testing the connection itself uses bits. No mainstream gaming platform offers a setting to switch.

Steam

Steam's download page shows a live MB/s figure and a graph. On a 500 Mbps plan expect 50-58 MB/s sustained. Two Steam-specific things worth knowing:

• Download region matters enormously. Settings → Downloads → Download Region. A congested or distant region can halve your speed.
• Sizes are binary. A game listed as 50 GB is 53.7 decimal GB of data, so it takes about 7% longer than a naive estimate.

More detail in why Steam shows MB/s.

Epic Games Launcher

Epic reports MB/s in the downloads panel and has no unit setting. It does expose a throttling option — Settings → Throttle Downloads — which is worth checking if your speeds look capped at a suspiciously round number.

Epic tends to be more aggressive than Steam at saturating a connection, so it is often the better test of what your line can really do.

PlayStation

The PS5 shows download progress in MB/s in the Downloads/Uploads notification area. Its connection test, under Settings → Network → Connection Status, reports Mbps.

PlayStation downloads are also notoriously sensitive to rest mode and to running a game while downloading — both can cut throughput substantially.

Xbox

Xbox is the platform most likely to show you a bits figure, because its network test is prominent. Settings → General → Network settings → Test network speed reports Mbps, while the queue in My Games & Apps reports MB/s.

This is the single most common source of 'my Xbox is downloading slowly' complaints that turn out to be a unit misunderstanding: the test said 400, the download says 47, and the owner concludes something is wrong. 400 ÷ 8 = 50, so 47 MB/s is a healthy result.

Converting between them

One anchor point covers almost every case:

• A network test showing 200 Mbps should produce downloads around 25 MB/s.
• A network test showing 500 Mbps should produce downloads around 62.5 MB/s.
• A download running at 30 MB/s is consuming 240 Mbps of your line.

Anything else, the Mbps to MB/s calculator handles instantly in both directions.

When the numbers genuinely do not line up

If your download is far below one eighth of your tested speed, work through these in order:

1. 1Wi-Fi. Consoles in particular have modest wireless radios. Test on Ethernet once to establish a baseline.
2. 2The platform's own throttle setting. Epic, Steam and Xbox all have one, and it is easy to leave enabled.
3. 3The content server. Change Steam's download region; on consoles, try again at a quieter time.
4. 4Other devices. A 4K stream elsewhere in the house takes its share.
5. 5Storage speed. On a console with an external mechanical drive, the disk can become the limit on large installs.

The takeaway

No gaming platform lets you change the unit, and none needs to. Downloads are files, so they are shown in bytes; network tests measure the line, so they are shown in bits.

Keep the factor of eight in mind and every platform's numbers suddenly agree with each other — and with your bill.