Downloading games to your PS5 is something that most owners of the console will have to deal with eventually, and sometimes the download speeds of those games make for a less than exciting experience.
Larger games obviously take longer. But the download speeds of games on your own console can have a lot to do with a few different things. For instance if you’re noticing that your download speeds for PS5 games is slower than you anticipated, there may be something you can do to speed them up.
There are a handful of different things you could check. Though every method may not work for every person. And that’s because the issues causing slower download speeds for one person could be an entirely different issue for another.
Here are some options you can test out to see if your PS5 download speeds increase. That way you can get to playing the games faster and having fun.
How to make PS5 download speeds faster
For some it might seem pretty obvious what you need to do here. But for others it may not be as noticeable. First, start with considering your internet connection.
Consider downloading over ethernet instead of Wi-Fi
Ethernet is always going to be faster than Wi-Fi when it comes to PS5 download speeds. That won’t change any time soon. To be clear though, downloading over ethernet may not be as fast for someone that has slower internet than someone who is using Wi-Fi instead.
If you have internet download speeds of 45Mbps over ethernet, but someone else has 600Mbps download speeds over Wi-Fi, then their downloads will be faster. All that said, whatever your internet speeds are, it’ll always be faster for you to use ethernet instead of using Wi-Fi. If you’re able to. As not everyone’s setups allow for it.
My setup for example, doesn’t allow for an ethernet connection for downloads unless I want to run a long cable across the apartment floor. So I stick to Wi-Fi. Knowing full well that my downloads would complete much quicker if my PS5 was hardwired.
Set up ethernet for your PS5 internet connection
To download games and other things over ethernet you first have to set your PS5’s internet connection option to wired. You can do this by navigating to the settings menu and then scrolling to find network.
Open the network menu and then scroll down to select the network settings menu. Here you’ll see the option for setting up your internet connection. Select this and set up manually. This will give you the option to use Wi-Fi or use LAN. And LAN is what you’re going for here.
After selecting LAN, click the done button and the console should take care of the rest. You will need to have your ethernet (LAN) cable connected to the PS5 before telling the console to connect with a wired setup.
Make sure you’re downloading one thing at a time
You might be surprised at slow a game download can go on a PS5 if there are multiple games you’re trying to download at once, as this will cause the speeds to decrease.
So a good suggestion would be to try downloading one thing at a time. Whether you went on a spending spree during a really awesome PlayStation Store sale or you finally decided to download a handful of games from your backlog.
Try selecting one game at a time to download and wait till it’s finished before you try to download the next one.
Check your download and upload speeds and then reset your modem, router, and finally your PS5
You may pay for a specific internet package that allows speeds up to a certain amount. But, the words to pay attention to there are “up to.” You may not always be getting those top of the range speeds.
So when experiencing slow downloads, you should double check what speeds you’re getting. If they’re rather low for what your plan comes with, reset your modem and router and check the speeds again. Then restart your PS5 and hopefully the downloads will speed up.
Upgrade your modem and/or router
Something to consider is to change out your modem and router. If your equipment is old then it may simply be time to get newer equipment that is better suited for gaming. Which is also going to help your download speeds.
The downside to this is that it requires buying new hardware.