I'm begining to think I should change my name fron Granny Goodwitch to Granny Dumbbell.

Finally decided to download some games, and have picked 9 gotta-have ones from Gog. Am almost sure I can handle placing an order, but that's about it.

Do I order all at once, or wait for downloads and order one at a time?

Do the downloads automatically go into the game folder I made a while ago with ya'all's help? Yup, HELP is the magic word.

Next question - Ive read that some DLs take hours, will I be able to do anything else with the 'puter at the time, or just go to bed for a day or so?

It's up to you whether you download them all at once or one at a time. It makes no difference in how you download. Once you pay, you get to a page that offers to take you to your "My Account" page, which looks like a bookshelf. Your games will be on it. They'll always be there waiting for you to download them. If you click on a game, you'll get a choice of whether to use GOG's downloader or just download the files manually. I always do it manually.


I doubt it. You'd have to put them there, either download directly to the folder or drag them there afterwards. I make separate folders for the games, which are usually more than one file.



You don't have to download the games all at once. You can download one, play it, download the next one, play it... There's no time limit for the games. They area always on your "bookshelf" at GOG on your My Account page. You don't have to download them all at once.

granny, GOG puts all their game downloads in a folder called "GOG downloads" in My Documents. Just let it do it! You'll always be able to find them there easily.



The downloads are much faster if you use GOG's downloader. You download it first, it doesn't take long, then when you need it, open it from the Start Menu. Once it's open on your desktop, just go to GOG, to your bookshelf, and start grabbing those games.

I'd suggest doing one or two at a time because you'll probably want all the extras that go with them, too.

Gil.

No need to change your name, granny! I also do what Gil does - I let GOG download the games to their folder - keeps things organized. The GOG downloader has a pause option, so if you need to use your computer during a download, just pause it for a bit.

Downloading each game file manually completely fills my downstream bandwidth. There is no way I could download any faster using the GOG downloader. If you have a superfast 45 Mbps download speed, maybe you'd see a difference between manual downloads and using the GOG download, but mine is nowhere near that fast.

I suspect the download speeds are the same whether you download manually or use the GOG downloader. The only thing that slows you down by downloading the files manually is having to be there to choose the next file when the previous file has finished downloading. Of course if you're leaving it downloading overnight or while you're out shopping, the GOG downloader has the advantage.

Anyway, thanks to Traveler and Draclvr for information on how to use the downloader. I didn't know GOG uses a particular folder that you can specify for downloading. For myself, I just like to download manually so I know exactly what is happening.

Jenny,

You may be right but have you tried the downloader? The default setting is for four download connections but you can have up to ten, which is bound to be faster than the single connection you have when you download manually.

You can also choose where the downloaded files go, the download speed limit, a couple of other things. I've never bothered with them but you might see a reason to. Why not try the downloader anyway?

Gil.

The number of download connections I'd have using the GOG downloader wouldn't matter because I only have a certain amount of bandwidth available to be filled. I get 1.4 MB/sec download speed from GOG, which is as much as my connection will support. To get more, I'd have to have a second network cable installed and run from my house, then get a second Internet account from my ISP.

If I used the GOG downloader and had 4 connections going at once, each would be 0.35 MB/sec because I only have 1.4 MB/sec total downstream bandwidth for all connections.

Don't confuse reporting methods.
1.4 MB/sec = 1.4 Megabytes per second.
Since there are 8 bits in a byte,
1.4 MB/sec = 1.4 x 8 Megabits per second (Mbps) = 11.2 Mbps
When you download from a website, your speed is usually reported in bytes/sec (MB/sec or KB/sec).
When you subscribe to an account at an ISP, or use a bandwidth-measuring site, they report the download speeds in bits, or megabits.
So a 5 Mbps connection from your ISP would actually give you download speeds of 5/8 MB/sec, which is 625 KB/sec.

Something else to keep in mind. That speed is from your ISP to your house, not from your house to whatever site you're visiting.

While you may get whatever speed you're paying for from your ISP, it might slow down depending on the speed of the servers and the connection from your ISP to that site. And how it's routed to your ISP.

I compare the speed I get from GOG with the speed I get from bandwidth testers, which is the most I'm going to get.