WTF Steam??!!

G80FTW

G80FTW

Active Member
Ok, so I havent had an ISP for the past 2 months or so, and my only internet comes from my phone which is actually pretty fast for a phone, but Im limited to 6GB a month (anything over 6GB they charge me $10/GB, even though its a 5GB plan).

It hasnt really posed a problem, other than almost everything on my computer is out of date because I wont download updates when I am connected, nor will I allow Steam to update (to save data) I mainly just use my data for browsing youtube or here to make sure I dont use too much.

So I wanted to play Tropico 4 which I got through Steam a while back.... and it wont let me! It said I needed to connect to the internet because Steam had to download new files to use some new file format or somethiing? So I was like, no. And so now its telling me that it needs to re-install the game. And that makes NO SENSE because there was nothing wrong with the current install. Its saying it has to re-download the whole game, which it says is 3.7GB. I am certainly not wasting my data on such a useless download just because Steam thinks I need to.

Is there anything I can do to get around this "more efficient file system" that Steam is insisting I re-install my games to use?

Has anyone else encountered this?
 
My friend had a similar problem with garry's mod, even though he downloaded it when he was trying to play it it told him to download 4gb, he did it knowing that he really had the game installed and it downloaded these "4gb" in 2 min even though his internet if not fast at all. So I would say download the game like steam tells you cause it might be just a steam error and it will only download a small update... hope this helps somehow :D
 
Hate to be that guy, but you agreed to Steams terms of agreement when you installed it, so just deal with it. I understand you have limited data to use, but surely somewhere near you has free wifi you can use.
 
NyxCharon said:
Hate to be that guy, but you agreed to Steams terms of agreement when you installed it, so just deal with it. I understand you have limited data to use, but surely somewhere near you has free wifi you can use.
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That's a good idea, but there is a tiny problem... he would have to set up his desktop (it's not a laptop, right?) in some place like McDonald's which I don't think is the best idea ever... :eek:
 
NyxCharon said:
Whats to stop him from downloading it on a laptop then using steams backup/restore tool?
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The fact that my laptop is from 1998 and only has about 4GB of free disk space on a 16GB HDD :P

Im kinda afraid to let it download the 3.7GB, in hopes that its not 3.7GB. Because even the internet on my phone is nearly as fast as my cable was (30mbps) so it could download 100mb rather quick without me realizing it.

Im just over 5GB on my data right now, so I only have 1GB of data left before they charge me. Luckily my data starts over on the 2nd. So even with streaming youtube/netflix and browsing this forum/paying bills online and even a couple of hours of online gaming Iv just used 5GB in a month.
 
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G80FTW said:
The fact that my laptop is from 1998 and only has about 4GB of free disk space on a 16GB HDD :P

Im kinda afraid to let it download the 3.7GB, in hopes that its not 3.7GB. Because even the internet on my phone is nearly as fast as my cable was (30mbps) so it could download 100mb rather quick without me realizing it.

Im just over 5GB on my data right now, so I only have 1GB of data left before they charge me. Luckily my data starts over on the 2nd. So even with streaming youtube/netflix and browsing this forum/paying bills online and even a couple of hours of online gaming Iv just used 5GB in a month.
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I don't see how you can stick with a 5GB per month data plan for your home internet.
 
WRXGuy1 said:
I don't see how you can stick with a 5GB per month data plan for your home internet.
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Its becoming pretty easy. Since I dont do alot of online gaming anymore, the main use for my internet has really just been netflix even before I cancelled it.

So, really all I feel like I lost was netflix. Which really does suck, but my 27 local channels and extensive collection of DVDs ( and 1 bluray) get me by haha.
 
Turns out it didnt re-install the game like it said it was going to. When I went ahead and clicked next it said "discovering existing files" or something and after that it was good to go. So Im not really sure why it said it was going to install 3.7GB...
 
SpringWater said:
Wow, you are tough, I download about 5gb of data a day... so I would basically die if I had a limit of 5gb/month :D
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Well, I have found that video streaming uses the majority of bandwidth and data. Almost anything else, aside from updates, uses next to nothing. Surfing this forum and google for instance uses only a couple megs. However, when I first started using my phone for internet I spent all day on netflix watching 3 movies, and 5 shows and it used over 3GB just in that day. So streaming HD video (without issue at that) really drained my data. But, it was pretty cool that I was able to watch HD movies streaming off my phone without any stuttering or buffering.
 
Anyways, all I can say is: Told Ya! cause your case in steam was same as my friend's, he too had to download about 5 gigabytes of data even though he already downloaded the whole game, and when he clicked download it downloaded a few megabytes and that's it... they really should fix this bug in steam...
 
G80FTW said:
Its becoming pretty easy. Since I dont do alot of online gaming anymore, the main use for my internet has really just been netflix even before I cancelled it.

So, really all I feel like I lost was netflix. Which really does suck, but my 27 local channels and extensive collection of DVDs ( and 1 bluray) get me by haha.
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That will be fine for a while, I thought about doing the same thing, but after a couple months you will get pretty bored with those movies!
 
mikeb2817 said:
Erm.....You didnt know this before hand :/
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Well, I wasnt exactly sure how much data online gaming would use. I would assume it would use alot, but turns out it uses very little.

And geoff doesnt it cost you like $15 everytime you change your gamertag? Havent you changed it like 10 times this year already??
 
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