Starfield is right around the corner and players want to jump into space exploring as fast as possible, despite the game’s size. With some simple math, you can easily say how long it will take to download Starfield according to your internet speed.
With everything Tod Howard promised Starfield to be, it’s no surprise the game file’s size is huge. It’s 125 GB on PC and 139.84GB on Xbox Series X/S, and that size will require a lot from your internet connection.
How to check my internet connection speed
Before you do anything, you need to know your internet speed. If you don’t know, you can check it on websites such as fast.com, speedtest.net, bandwidthplace.com, and speed-test-pros.com.
It’s also good to test your connection speed on the day you’ll download Starfield as it can differ depending on the day and time you are using it. You can currently pre-load the game on Xbox Game Pass or if you pre-purchased Starfield to avoid bad internet days.
Related: Starfield rockets past Baldur’s Gate 3 to take Steam top spot, and it’s not even out yet
If a lot of people are using the same network, if there are multiple downloads, or if the Wifi connection is being used to stream YouTube videos, series, and movies, the internet speed will suffer a lot, so we recommend using a cable connection instead of Wifi to download Starfield.
How to calculate how long it will take to download Starfield
It all depends on your Internet speed, but you’ll likely be downloading Starfield for well over an hour.
It’s time for some math. Internet connections are measured in Megabit per second (Mbps). However, game sizes are measured in Gigabytes (GB), so we first need to convert the internet speed to Megabytes per second (MBps) and then to Gigabytes per second (GBps) to learn how long it would take to download Starfield.
It’s easy to confuse Megabits (Mb) with Megabytes (MB), but they are very different measures. One Byte equals eight bits, and one bit equals 0.125 bytes.
We’ll use the average internet connection speed of the U.S. to demonstrate the calculation, but you can use your own to follow along. You’ll need your internet speed and the size of the Starfield file.
According to the Speedtest Global Index, the average speed of Fixed Broadband in the U.S was 207.32 Mbps in July and Starfield‘s file is 125 GB on PC. Now, we need to convert 207.32 Mbps to MBps, and then to GBps.
You can use an online converter, but here we believe we should use what we learned in school in day-to-day life, so we will demonstrate the process. You just have to either multiply 207.32 by 0.125 or divide it by eight, both are right since you know that one byte equals eight bits and one bit equals 0.125 bytes.
Related: How long is Starfield?: Time to complete the main storyline
The average internet speed in the U.S. is 26 MBps. But you need to know that number in GBps. One MBps equals 0.001 GBps, so just multiply 26 by 0.001 to convert and you get 0.026 GBps as the average internet connection speed in the U.S.
If the Starfield file is 125 GB, just divide it by 0.026 or the number you got by converting your own internet connection speed and you’ll know how long it will take to download Starfield. In our case, it would take 4.807 seconds, which converts into 80 minutes by dividing by 60, which then converts one hour and 18 minutes.
How long does it take to download Starfield based on your internet connection speed?
We calculated that the average internet connection speed in the U.S. is 26 MBps, which converts to 0.026 GBps according to the Speedtest Global Index, which means it would take one hour and 18 minutes to download Starfield on PC and one hour and 30 minutes on Xbox Series X/S.
Related: Can you get Starfield early access on Xbox Game Pass?
Internet connections are unstable, however, and vary a lot as you use them so it might take more time than expected. If you have an internet connection lower than 26MBps, it will also take longer than what we calculated and it will be faster if it’s higher.
Here’s a list of how long it would take for Starfield to download on PC according to your internet connection speed:
- 25 Mbps: 11 hours and 30 minutes.
- 50 Mbps: Five hours and 47 minutes.
- 100 Mbps: Two hours and 54 minutes.
- 200 Mbps: One hour and 23 minutes.
- 300 Mbps: 56 minutes.
- 500 Mbps: 34 minutes.
- 900 Mbps: 19 minutes.
