Are Your PlayStation Console Downloads Slower Than Molasses? Here's A Method To Speed Things Up

Are your PS4, PS3, and PS Vita downloads ridiculously slow? We found a method online that has our PlayStation 4's downloading at the speed of light once again!

[matrixman92]

yes. Our internet is 50 mb/s, ps4 gets roughly 20 mb/s only for some reason. Watch dogs took somewhere around 24 hours to download

[Yaay4me]

Really? Hmmmm interesting. Mine took less than a minute for me to start the game. And then it was completed after 5 minutes of playing the game.

[inmusicutrust]

Yay for you!

[UltraNova]

Does the OpenDNS code work internationally?

[UltimateMaster]

Too.. many.. PS4... Servers.. too.. crowded!

It hasn't happen to me, but hell, if this works then good for you.

[liquidhalos]

This worked for me, my download speeds are brilliant now. Sweet and thanks

[elmaton98]

While this method did work and I got a little boost on download speed, it actually made online play a little laggy. That's my experience but I do have a high internet conection so this method is not for me.

[slivery]

You people are making no sense.

If you are getting a solid 20 mb/s, there is no way in hell it took you that long to download Watchdogs. So there is a an underlying problem.

Seriously if you do the math on that it would only take you about 3 hours to download Watchdogs with 20 mb/s.

[liquidhalos]

I'm the same, I have a 40mb line, the ps4 speed test/estimate says I have 24mb yet to download pixeljunk last night which is less than 500mb I had to wait 2 hours. Yet downloads on phone and pc use full speed. I'm glad to see an article like this as I was starting to think my ps4 was on the fritz. Odd thing is, if I'm in standby downloads finish in a snap, the war thunder update yesterday which was a few gig was done in in no time at all. So what I do now is setup all downloads and put the ps4 into stably mode. It's not ideal but it works for now.

[matrixman92]

the problem isnt with my connection, it is something wrong with my ps4 or DNS(what this article is about). It shows that 20 mb,then disregards it and downloads stuff extremely slow. We can do the math, its not our fault something is wrong with the download speeds

[Crazyglues]

Listen I was having this problem too, and I found it strange since my normal speeds are 83mbps down and 35mbps up...

So nothing is slow for me, and I mean nothing. -But for whatever reason PS4 was downloading everything slow as hell.. warthunder/pixeljunk all were coming in slow...

So I did this, just the DNS switched to Google’s DNS 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

now everything is flying- everything feels fast, even things loading in the menu, like recent PlayStation activity - the first icon - loads blazing fast compared to how it was loading before..

My BF4 feels like a new game, but that could have something to do with the new netcode update / so I can't really say but I'm happy because when I first played it was ok, then later I did this.. and now it's amazing, I think this was my real problem all this time.

I just downloaded the COD Ghost update this morning and wow, it started saying 24 minutes, and then as soon as it started it was flying in and dropped to 16 mins and then 11 mins for a 2499mb file... ( That's my true speeds )

I was not getting that before, I am now.. So if this works for you enjoy, if it does not / go back to how you was.. -BUT DON'T KNOCK IT, BECAUSE IT DOES WORK/ and don't knock Matrixman92 for explaining what their experience is, that's how it was working for me and now it's much faster/-

It's just a solution for people who were having problems. (where you have a really fast connection but you are not getting really fast speeds) -may not work for all but it worked for me and I'm ecstatic..

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[Knushwood Butt]

My PS3 has been giving me DNS errors for close to a week now.

I thought it was my crappy ISP, but maybe not??

[andibandit]

Sound to me like you PS4 is downloading game behind your back, perhaps Megatons for E3?

[psyxon]

24 hrs to download on a 20mb speed? uh huh...

[liquidhalos]

Clearly there are discrepancies between ps4 speed estimate and actual download speeds. Don't be a Douche your whole life bud. Some actual real whole people out there are having issues.

[incredibleMULK]

Buy disc or smash ps4 into a thousand pieces... the choice is yours.

[wsoutlaw87]

I have issues with my internet downloading games much slow then my mb/s would suggest. It seems like almost everyone else that ive seen, and the author of this, have uverse. I tried changing my dns settings and it actually helped. it was saying 15 hours for a demo then changed to 8. Still very slow but it helped, but it doesnt make sense. I think it has more to do with that terrible 2wire router they use and have seen people post ways to configure it to work better, so I will try that.

[wsoutlaw87]

i set the firewall to dmzplus and then reset the ps4 and it finished in 30 minutes. Maybe i was having a firewall issue or maybe the ps4 just needed to be reset.

[SilentNegotiator]

20mb times 60 seconds = 1200mb/minute
1200mb times 60 minutes = 72,000mb/hour
72,000mb times 24 hours = 1,728,000mb in 24 hours

Wow...I didn't know Watch Dogs is approximately 1687.4GB.
1.65TB seems a bit big for a single game.

[matrixman92]

you are completely ignoring the situation. It shows a download speed that is pretty good, but still downloads stuff extremely slow. Someone else right above even mentioned it as well

[Wh15ky]

Aren't download speeds measured in megabits per second? Not megabytes.

[360ICE]

@matrixman92

A comma would have helped.

"gets 20mbps only, for some reason" I take it, is what you meant to write. As it stands now, SilentNegotiator's response makes sense.

Also, your problem doesn't make sense anyway. I mean, of course PSN's servers is not gonna be the same as your PS4's downspeed, right? PSN has its limits too.

@Whi15ky

Nope.

[Wh15ky]

Maybe different where you are but here in the UK download speeds are measured in Mbps (megabits per second) and memory is measured in MB (megabytes).

[kupomogli]

The 20 mb/s thing is correct, but I call bs. I don't own a PS4, but I recently downloaded a 12GB PS3 game from PSN and it took less than two hours.

Everyone also uses wireless connections. Hook up your consoles wired. It'll speed up the speed of your downloads, but more importantly, it'll give people who are playing against you online a better experience because your slow internet keeps lagging the game(depending on the game,) or makes you teleport everywhere.

[matrixman92]

sorry, im not going to run a 30 ft ethernet cable through my house to the modem

[seanpitt23]

Yeah I tested my connection getting 55mbs and it took me over a 40 minutes to download pixeljunk yesterday so something is not right.

[Budobear]

Wow, living in a rural area I always guessed my internets wouldn't be great.....but I guessed wrong.
It took about 2 minutes for pixeljunk to download for me yesterday. Living a literal stones throw from the exchange makes a difference obviously.
I feel your pain if you have to wait that long though.

[seanpitt23]

Yeah normally I can download a 20GB game in under 15 minutes so it's something on Sony end.

[rdgneoz3]

Took more than 2 min for me to download Pixeljunk yesterday (probably about 10), though I also was downloading War Thunder and Trine at the same time. Went for dinner and watched a show after (1 hour about) and everything was all downloaded, installed, and patched by the time I returned.

[SnakeCQC]

On my 6 meg connection i can generally download 30gb overnight(7-8 hours). There's something up with your isp; maybe they're throttling your downloads.

[solidmasta]

Dude I have 25mbps and it took 25 min. If you are on wi fi maybe that is the problem if not call your internet provider lol

[360ICE]

Ignore this... Someone else posted what I wrote before me.

[steve30x]

My internet is 120MB/s and Ive never seen anything download faster than 15MB/s. Ive even tested the download speed and it is 120MB/s.

http://www.speedtest.net/my...

[MarcoGT]

120 megabits is about 15.7 megabytes. 8 megabits to a megabyte, so your speed is fine
My ps4 only gets 35 dl 5.5 upload which is 4.5 megabytes a second which it shows on the stuff i download but i have VM 120 meg

[360ICE]

Typically,

MB = megabyte
mb = megabit

[deafdani]

Watch Dogs is around 20 GB, right?

If that's the case, then your download was WAY too slow, even at 20 mb/s.

To give you a frame of reference, I have a paltry 4 mb/s connection (and I'm lucky if I even hit that, it usually is around 3 mb/s, actually), and yet it took me around 10 hours to download Kingdoms of Amalur and a couple of DLCs on my PS3 last night, which in total weighed around 17-18 GB.

See the BIG disparity here? Something is seriously wrong here. Either the PS4 is really that awfully bad at downloading stuff, or your internet speed is even lower than you think. I suggest you look into it, see if you're really getting your money's worth with your ISP or something. :/

[Clunkyd]

Ethernet MasterRace!

[Deadpoolio]

You definitely are not getting 50mb speeds then, even my ex who only had 30mb could download 20gb in about an hour....I would also bet money that you are also using the wireless LMAO connection which just makes it worse anyway....

Protip: with routers....ANY wired connections get ALL the bandwidth they require before anything is sent out to wireless signals.....

[CertifiedGamer]

Marixman92 doesn't know that people can just see his past post, and by doing it the conclusion is that he is an Xbox troll.

[OmegaShen]

I call bd on 24hrs, 24mins yes. When I download it, it took 25mins to fully download/install.

An I'm running 20mps with it being wire.

[mrpsychoticstalker]

My friends are very upset

[GarrusVakarian]

No they aren't. You're not fooling anyone.

So sad, coming into PS articles to tell lies. How insecure.

[XiSasukeUchiha]

Pathetic, just pathetic, just grabbing some straws I see.

[DragoonsScaleLegends]

I have 20mbps and it downloads at 20mbps.

[GarrusVakarian]

Same here.

[TheDude79]

Good to hear. Seems to be isolated cases, but when searching on Twitter, there do appear to be quite a few people having issues.

[KingKelloggTheWH]

I like how people disagreed with this, it's sad how desperate trolls are now days.

Seriously though, many people get their max speeds, it's up to your internet provider/location.

For example, my previous provider gave me ok speeds on xbox and great on PS, then my next one gave me the opposite.It's just how it is unless you fix it.

[dantesparda]

I have 10mbps and i get 10.

[Imalwaysright]

I have 20mbps as well and usually it takes more time to install a game than downloading it.

[Rimeskeem]

No it takes me like 20 seconds to

[sloth3395]

my PC gets speeds around 110mbs wired but wired my PS4 is only getting around 38mbs

[bloop]

My laptop gets 205mb wired and my PS4 says it's only getting around 40mb wired too. I think the "estimate" it shows is way off though. Watch dogs took under a half an hour to download for me so I presume the PS4 is getting faster speeds than it says it is.

[sloth3395]

yeah it downloaded fast for me also just the speeds show as slow for some reason

[fr0sty]

I'm a U-verse customer (24mbps tier) also, I did this and it actually did increase my speeds. I normally download around 2 MB per second, but was downloading 2 8gb updates today (DCU Online and War Thunder) and my speeds slowed to a crawl. I updated the DNS and now I'm back up to around 2 MB per second or higher.

[TheDude79]

I know there are some other UVerse folks that aren't having issues, so I guess it just depends on the area. Glad there are options like this that can make things better!!

[Palitera]

My PS4 usually downloads at full speed here (10mbps, meh!), BUT!

On the PS3, this is exactly the solution for big game updates that keep failing. I already used this a lot: it actually lowers my dl speed, but then the patch download never fails.

[Aceman18]

I have FiOS at 75/35 and it took me no more than 5-10 minutes to download Thief on PS4 wired, and I believe that game was more than 20 gigs.

Over WiFi I think it probably would have taking it 10-15 minutes to download.

[BLKxSEPTEMBER]

took me 12 hrs to DL WD on a 150 mbs connection. tool even longer to DL war planes. Sony needs to upgrade their network seriously. watch dogs proved just how bad their network can be. there are hundreds of people on the sony site who complained about the slow dl for WD.

[NotoriousJae]

What the hell is wrong wih your connection I downloaded watch dogs in 35 minutes on a 80mbps connection

[Spotie]

Never occurred to you that the problem was with Watch Dogs?

[Flutterby]

That would be your service provider not psn

[BLKxSEPTEMBER]

Oh ok and I guess the hundreds of people on the Sony site complaining about the same thing are also having "problems" with there connection aswell right? GTFO its on Sony's end not mines. It was a well known issue with watch dogs feel free to look it up.

[DefenderOfDoom2]

All my downloads on my PS3 have been quick since 2009 .

[KwietStorm_BLM]

Mine is quite fast actually. Thank God it isn't PS3 speeds.

[B1uBurneR]

That's because the system is not utilizing the Powah for downloading

[TheFallenAngel]

my internet is slow to begin with. I couldnt even try ps now because how crappy it is.

[Faztkiller]

Same here had to go to a friends house to try it. Love living in the country but hate the internet speeds

[system22]

what seems to take a while are the actual updates themselves. downloading them once they are finally available seems quick.

[bmbnbs]

Nice step-by-step, dude!

[Eyesoftheraven]

I have 150Mb/s with up to 177Mb/s boosts through COX. All PCs in my house when using Speedtest.net consistently reach those speeds. My PS4 tops out at 50 - 70Mb/s.

[Stopher92]

I have the COX Ultimate service as well, and those are the same speeds that I get. I love it, it's blazing. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw games download at lightning speeds on my PS4. My PS3 didn't support those speeds. My iMac is able to download at the full speed and it's absolutely insane. I love COX, they've gotten more reliable recently.

[Eyesoftheraven]

Yeah it's great. Looking forward to the upgrade they're working on. In Vegas, we're geting 1Gb/s package soon. So every other tier will be upgraded at no cost. Should be getting 300Mb/s down 60Mb/s up then.

Finally internet is substantially faster than hard media for installing games or downloading iTunes albums. Downloading patches, software, games, media, etc. is so painless with high speeds. Sometimes bottlenecked by the servers we're downloading from now.

Hoping the upcoming PS4 network updates improve its speeds. But even my PS3 never hits the full speed. Never over 70 ish Mb/s. Even my iPhone 5s on wifi 2.4Ghz reaches higher than the PS4 does hardwired.

[SuperBlunt]

Wired i get 45 mbs. Wifi adaptor on the ps4 isnt that great

[intellegent]

If you guys would read the article it says that it's a problem us using AT&T Uverse Internet are having. My PS3, Vita, and PS4 have all been downloading things slower than ever before. Just did this and War Thunder should be done downloading in 46 minutes. Last night when i shut off my PS4 it was going so slow that the remaining time was 12 hours. Yes, it was that slow this past month lol.

THANK YOU!!!

[bmbnbs]

Man, that's a huge improvement! Congrats!

[DarKnightDave]

Yeah, I have U-Verse also. It was telling me War Thunder would take 99+ hrs to download. I went to a friends house who has Charter, and got the update and a few other games downloaded in about 4 hrs. I am sooo dropping att. I only get around 4-500 kbps. Yeah thats right, KBPS!!

[Eyesoftheraven]

Here's my speed test through PC:
http://www.speedtest.net/my...

My PS4:
http://imgur.com/UQVO0fe

[one2thr]

Damn! Whose your service provider?

Nvm, I just read your earlier posy

[Eyesoftheraven]

COX. I have the Ultimate package. It's going to be raised at no additional cost to 300Mb/s download and 60Mb/s upload when they release their 1Gb/s package soon. Just not sure why PS4 is being slowed down. My guess is it's the PSN.

Oh, and nice icon! ;)

[DoubleYourDose]

Wow, those are insane speeds. How much do you pay for that service?

[Eyesoftheraven]

lol thanks. Though keep in mind 170Megabits is only about 21MegaBytes. It's currently on sale for $85.99/month. We have a package so it's TV, Internet and phone for $140/month. http://www.cox.com/resident...

They're in the process of adding another tier which allows for 1Gb/s. When that happens, they're going to boost every tier below it. So mine will soon be about 300Mb/s or 40MB/s at no additional cost.

Just kinda sucks the PS4 is being slowed down for whatever reason.

[JustInTlME]

How much is that package?! That's amazing!

[OpenGL]

ISPs have been known to manipulate traffic and internet speeds to show inflated results for Speedtest.

[Eyesoftheraven]

But I get steady 18 - 22MB/s (150 - 170 Mb/s) downloads in Steam and Origin so that's not true in my case. That's consistent with my SpeedTest.net results. :) Wish I had more bubbles :(

[OpenGL]

Different traffic from different servers gets treated differently. On my ISP downloads from Origin are insanely fast compared to my Steam downloads.

[Soldierone]

I have cox too, and I have the same problem. Don't have that one, but we have 25Mbps one and the PS3 and PS4 are only ever able to get around 6Mbps....

With how Cox constantly raises prices, I think I'll just switch to Google for 1 gig speeds.

[one2thr]

I recommend swapping out the Hard Drive for a Hybrid drive, the download speed will increase by 50%+ and games load even faster.

It took, me 4 minutes to download War Thunder on a connection 28-31 dwn and 10-13 up, WITH multiple devices(about 6) using the same connection, even though my system is connected via ether net cable, its still worth doing if its speed you guys/gals are looking for.

[one2thr]

What I meant was that the speed to write to the Hard drive will increase, which in turn will shorten the amount of time needed to download...

Well I see someone knew what I meant.

[x_RadicalAura_x]

Just checked and according to speedtest.net, I should be getting ~25 Mbps down. According to the PS4 internet connection test, I'm getting 1.4 Mbps. WTF?!?! No wonder my downloads have been so slow. 0_0

[bmbnbs]

Keep us posted if this helps you out!

[Deathdeliverer]

I get my full 50mb dl on my ps4 and XB1 though they are direct connected. I have no idea what'slowing you guys.

[Skate-AK]

I always get my exact download speed. I even run wireless too. Guess I am just lucky.

[Ninjatogo]

I've been doing this for all my gadgets for years now. The best thing to do however, is first check what would be your best DNS server to use. The Google/Open DNS isn't always going to be the fastest option.

I suggest using namebench on your PC to find the best for your particular connection.

https://code.google.com/p/n...

[dazzrazz]

I downloaded Watch Dogs under 2 hours, Wi-Fi warriors need to get dat Ethernet cable !

[Juangie3]

I did that and yes it works!

[uth11]

This fix makes no sense. Switching to a faster DNS should only speed up the initial connection to a server, not increase download speeds. What is it doing, constant name resolution?

[TheDude79]

I don't really get it either, just something I looked up and it worked. I changed it back to double check, and there is a significant difference. Very strange

[AenthonyDa1nOnli]

The article is pretty good. i tried it and it made a big difference i download 11 gigs of war thunder patches in (1 hour auto settings)28 mins using open dns and on my vita downloaded limbo in (5mins using auto settings)1min using the google dns. i am pretty freaking thrilled about this.

I have comcast in houston 50mb package.

[JackVagina]

people in here complaining about 15mb+ download speeds?

All thoughtout my PS3s life iv been downloading games at 250-400kb/sec iv had to leave my PS3 on overnight alot of times

but thankfully i get 3mb/sec with my PS4 now and 3mb is like super sonic speed to me...lol

[D3ATH_DRIV3R_777]

My connection speed is 80.3(download), and 76.7(upload). So i'm good!

[Bladesfist]

http://n4g.freeforums.net/t...

There is a thread about this issue with some working fixes and alternative ways to connect your PS4 to the internet. As documented around the Net the PS4 seems to have a problem with Wireless N for a lot of people and is actually faster when your router is running b/g.

[caseh]

Don't know why the proxy settings haven't been mentioned at all. This was discovered years ago on the PS3.

Set your PC up as an AD-HOC proxy server, route your PS4 through the proxy. This works a treat.

As an added bonus you can install a bandwidth monitor to see exactly how much data is being shifted rather than an estimate.

[Soldierone]

Facing facts, if your PlayStation randomly starts slowing down with downloads its the ISP's fault. They are constantly being caught throttling connections to many popular things. Netflix not playing in HD during the day? Probably because your ISP throttled the connection because their out dated technology can't handle the bandwith..... even though you pay outrageous prices for it.....

It's stupid, but it's the truth. Phone companies are trying to make internet packages similar to cell phones, and in return are destroying the internet as we know it.

[KingKevo]

For some weird reason after the update form like two months ago many users, including myself, got an error message when trying to stream via twitch. I was also searching for quite some time if someone came up with a solutions and thanks to a guy on the PS forums I also stumbled upon this solution that invloves changing the DNS and I sticked to it since.

It is interesting to see that it may even solve the problem with the download speed that the author here had. So I guess this article is helpful to many people and it's a good thing to switch over to a public or another private DNS when having connection problems of any kind on any device, maybe even just preventive. That may really solve the issue.

Positive rating for the story for sure.

[AnotherGamer117]

Here is a simple solution to see if DNS issues are causing a problem:

Use Namebench or DNS Benchmark (look them up).

These tools will use your connection (from a PC) and determine the best DNS server to be using. I have DSL and my providers DNS servers were 33% slower than Google DNS and 14% slower than Open DNS servers.

So I am now using Google DNS servers for my systems. Please check out those tools if you are having issues - it just might help.

[TheDude79]

I seen someone else mention that, and I did download it. Haven't had a chance to try it out yet this morning, but I definitely will. Thanks!

[player002]

this worked for me my dl speeds are much better now

[isarai]

Guess it affects some and not others, mine is fine, just as fast as any other device in my house. only takes like 4-5mins to download 3gb

[PaulKersey]

I'm going to try this. I have a 30mbps connection which works as advertised with my other devices, yet it took me 3 hours to download the UFC demo (which is around 2.8GB).

[wynams]

DNS is just used to resolve URLs to IPs and should not affect download speeds at all (once the download IP is known).

Also, I would be shocked if playstation store used DNS AT ALL.

I'm calling BS

[Bytor]

PSN uses it playststion home uses it and the store is tied to home and I would get dsn errors and get booted from home and psn.

[mattgdrums]

i have no problems

[bmf7364]

Went from 2mb/s to 5.4mb/s download on both my PS4 and PS3. Doing it on my gaming PC and Xbone now.

[InTheZoneAC]

before a recent update, the one before last, my downloads were all moving at 3-6 MB per second. Now it's like 1 MB every second or so

I had downloaded and installed all my games, killzone, assassin's creed 4, battlefield 4, tomb raider, thief all within a few hours.

Then whatever update that came out a month or two ago has slowed just my downloads. Watchdogs was started at midnight and around 14 hours later I only had 8 or 14 GB downloaded. It was enough to get me started and complete half the first mission where it paused my game and told me to wait for the download to complete.

I can play games just fine, the speeds are normal, but downloads are lagging bad on my ps4.

PS3 downloads have always been the same for me, fast but never as fast as ps4 was when I first got it.

[objdadon]

I never had a problem and I got the cheapest Verizon package.

[Wikkid666]

You could have the fastest internet connection in the world, but if their servers are busy then you will get slower download speeds.

[Give_me_head_strong]

One good thing about Xbox One and 360 is the fast DLC and update download speed vs PS3/4.

[Jan55oni]

LOL. What was the size of Watch Dogs? 20Gb? It took 4 or 5 hours to download Final Fantasy XIV A Real Reborn (40Gb) with my internet which is 24M (PS4 was in stand-by). (2.2Mb/s DL speed)!! This network boost option doesn't work on Finland or at least I didn't see any difference.

[Wintersun616]

Odd.. AFAIK, Domain Name Servers' sole purpose is to change a URL to an IP address. I don't understand how a change of DNS would have an impact on file download speeds.

Any tech wizards out there to clarify this?

[harbie]

lol... this is the dumbest article i've seen in a long time.

At least the top comment on the article is dead on correct:

"Changing the DNS is not going go improve your download speeds by any noticeable degree. Your PlayStation doesn't use DNS to download from the PlayStation store it uses a direct IP.

Even if sonys programmers were dumb enough to use DNS (and they aren't) it would only query the DNS when you first connect which is a single packet of data. Again it would not effect your download time. That's just not how the internet works."

[kryteris]

this did nothing for me, i really don't get why it would. You don't normally change your dns unless your having connectivity issues with your current provider. And even then, those issues would be resolved with a day or 2.