How to Fix Lag Spikes While Downloading Game Updates

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You’re mid-match, then a launcher quietly decides now is the perfect time to pull a 40 GB patch — and your ping rockets while your frames hitch. This is one of the most fixable kinds of lag, because it has two clear causes you can shut off directly: bandwidth saturation and disk contention.

How to Fix Lag Spikes While Downloading Game Updates

A background download hits you twice: it clogs your network AND your storage at the same time.

First, know which half is hurting you

A background download attacks two systems at once, and the fix differs slightly for each. Turn on an in-game FPS + ping overlay:

  • Ping jumps but FPS stays high → the download is saturating your network.
  • FPS hitches and frame times spike → the patch write is contending for your storage.

Most large updates cause both. The good news is that stopping the download fixes both instantly — the rest of this guide is about preventing it from starting at the wrong time.

Throttle or schedule launcher downloads

Each storefront has its own controls — set them once:

  • Steam: Settings → Downloads → set bandwidth limits, or schedule downloads to off-hours. Per-game: Properties → Updates → Only update when I launch it.
  • Epic Games: Settings → enable Throttle Downloads and set a cap.
  • Battle.net: Settings → Downloads → limit bandwidth for updates and “latest patches.”
  • Xbox / Microsoft Store: pause updates from the Library while you play.

The fastest in-the-moment fix is always to pause the active download from the client’s download page until you’re done playing.

Tame Windows Update bandwidth

Windows itself is a frequent culprit. Cap and schedule it:

  1. Settings → Windows Update → Advanced options → Delivery Optimization → Advanced options — limit the bandwidth percentage used for downloads.
  2. Pause Windows Update before long sessions.
  3. Disable peer-to-peer update sharing if you don’t want Windows seeding updates in the background.

Relieve the disk contention

If frames hitch even with bandwidth handled, your storage is the bottleneck:

  1. Install games and downloads on separate drives where possible — let the patch write to one disk while the game reads from another.
  2. Keep your game SSD below ~80% full so it isn’t thrashing.
  3. Prefer an NVMe drive for active games; see NVMe vs SATA SSD for Gaming.
  4. If a patch is already installing, just pause it — disk pressure clears immediately.

Protect game traffic at the router

For a permanent fix, set up QoS (Quality of Service) on your router to prioritize your gaming PC or game ports above bulk downloads, and switch to wired Ethernet so game packets have a stable path. The full network playbook is in How to Optimize Your Internet Connection for Gaming and How to Fix High Ping and Packet Loss.

Then lower your baseline latency

Once downloads aren’t ambushing you, tighten the system so every match starts from the lowest possible delay: How to Minimize Input Delay for Competitive Gaming, Windows timer resolution, and Tier1Timer for consistent frame pacing.

Stop download-driven lag by throttling or scheduling launcher and Windows updates, splitting downloads and games across drives, and prioritizing game traffic with router QoS on a wired connection — then pause any active download the moment you sit down to play.

Frequently asked questions

Why do I lag when a game is downloading an update?

Two things happen at once. The download saturates your network connection, so your online game's packets queue behind it and your ping spikes. At the same time, writing the patch to disk hammers your storage, and if your game runs from the same drive it stalls while it waits to read assets. Fixing the lag means relieving both the bandwidth and the disk pressure.

How do I stop Steam from downloading while I play?

In Steam, go to Settings → Downloads and either set download bandwidth limits or restrict downloads to a time window when you are not gaming. You can also right-click any updating game in your Library and choose Properties → Updates → Only update this game when I launch it. Pausing the active download from the Downloads page is the fastest immediate fix.

Does downloading on the same SSD as my game cause stutter?

It can. Heavy sequential writes from a large patch compete with the random reads your game needs to stream textures and levels, especially on a single SATA SSD or a near-full drive. An NVMe drive with headroom handles both far better. Pausing the download, or installing games and downloads on separate drives, removes the contention.

How do I limit background download bandwidth on Windows?

Open Settings → Windows Update → Advanced options → Delivery Optimization → Advanced options, and cap the percentage of bandwidth used for updates. You can also pause Windows Update for up to a few weeks before long sessions. For launchers like Steam, Epic, and Battle.net, set per-app download throttles in each client's settings.

Will a wired connection help with download lag spikes?

Yes. Ethernet gives the game traffic a more stable path and lower base latency than Wi-Fi, so when a download does compete for bandwidth the spikes are smaller and shorter. Combine wired networking with download throttling and QoS on your router for the most stable result during background transfers.