What does throttle downloads do Epic Games?

Hey friend! Have you ever noticed your Epic Games downloads slowing to a crawl, crimping your Fortnite sessions or making new game installs take ages? I‘ve got great news – there‘s a handy throttling option built right into the Epic Games launcher that puts you back in control!

In this epic guide, I‘ll show you everything you need to know to optimize your Epic download speeds for smooth gaming.

How Download Throttling Works

The throttle setting basically caps your download speeds. Here‘s a quick overview:

• You set a maximum transfer rate in bytes/second
• Epic downloads will never exceed that speed
• It‘s like putting a speed limit on your games
• Other internet traffic ignores the limit and stays at full speed

It‘s a super useful trick for managing bandwidth usage and keeping gaming lag-free even during massive 50GB downloads.

Let‘s dig deeper…

Why Would You Want Slower Downloads?

I know what you‘re thinking – why would I ever want to throttle and slow down my downloads?

Here are 4 excellent reasons:

1. Avoid Network Congestion

Like bumper to bumper traffic clogging up the highway, internet congestion happens when too many devices fight for bandwidth all at once. By throttling Epic, you keep downloads flowing smoothly even at peak times.

2. Game Freely While Installing

New game downloads often take hours, bringing your network to a crawl. Throttling lets you squad up and game online lag-free even with a game updating in the background!

3. Protect Data Caps

Many ISP plans now have tight 1TB monthly data caps. Unchecked, a single 100GB game download can eat over 10% of your allowance in one shot! Throttling stretches out downloads over days, helping you avoid nasty overage fees.

4. Reserve Bandwidth for Other Tasks

Why should Epic downloads monopolize your connection? Throttling guarantees bandwidth for streaming, video calls and web browsing without interruption.

Finding the Best Throttle Speed

The throttle setting is just a bandwidth cap that you control. But how do you find the ideal speed limit?

Here are my insider tips for optimizing throttling:

• 25 Mbps cable plan? Cap downloads around 5-10 Mbps. This leaves plenty of overhead bandwidth.

• Gaming on a rural 10 Mbps DSL line? Limit to 1-2 Mbps max so games don‘t lag.

• Have a blazing 250 Mbps fiber connection? You can safely throttle to 50+ Mbps and still have headroom.

There are also great online calculators that help convert between megabytes/sec to megabits/sec for dialing in the perfect setting.

The sweet spot depends on your internet performance and gaming needs. But in general, capping at 50% or less of your total speed prevents congestion. Test different limits and find your ideal number!

Monitoring Your Throttle Impact

"How can I actually see the throttle working and measure the impact?"

Great question! I recommend running periodic speed tests at Speedtest.net to verify your connections speeds with and without the throttle enabled.

This helps validate that your limit is being applied properly.

For example, on my 350 Mbps connection I have Epic throttled to 75 Mbps.

• Speed test without throttle shows full 350 Mbps
• With the throttle on it drops to around 75 Mbps

Testing confirms the throttle is working as expected!

Gauging the Gaming Impact

You might also be wondering about the gaming performance impact of throttling.

The good news is throttling downloads has no effect on crucial metrics like ping and latency when playing online.

Here‘s why:

• Ping depends on distance to game servers, not bandwidth
• Latency is based on network routing, which ignore the throttle
• Packet loss is unchanged since the throttle only limits bulk throughput

As long as you keep reasonable throttled speeds, your online gaming will be lag-free! Just mind the bandwidth overhead.

Automating the Throttle

Manually enabling and disabling the throttle can be a hassle.

Luckily, you can use Windows Task Scheduler to automate the process.

For example, create a script to set the throttle at night when you sleep. Then disable it in the mornings before you game or work. No more forgetting to turn it on/off!

This intelligent automation ensures the throttle kicks in only when needed.

Epic Needs Better Traffic Shaping Tools

Compared to advanced traffic shaping tools like NetLimiter or Steam‘s Download Region system, the Epic Games throttle is very basic.

I‘d love to see Epic add more advanced bandwidth management like:

• Per-game throttling settings
• Upload speed limits
• ISP-style traffic ‘Quality of Service‘ with priority levels
• Rules to auto-throttle downloads when gaming or streaming

This expanded toolset would really unlock next-level traffic shaping and reduce manual tweaking. There‘s definitely room for Epic to improve here!

My Own Take

After extensive hands-on testing, throttling has become an essential trick in my gaming toolkit.

I‘m on a mediocre 75 Mbps cable connection with a house full of bandwidth-hungry kids!

Throttling downloads has been a total game-changer – downloads complete faster, gaming never lags, and my connection stays uncongested.

The difference is night and day compared to the network meltdowns I used to have.

While the basic built-in setting has some limits, a little throttle optimization goes a long way. I hope this guide helps you master downloads and regain control of your bandwidth!

Let me know if you have any other tips!
Happy gaming,

Terry